'>>5958948
>Ask your AI about the situation aboard the cruiser. After all, she’s the one with a strangle-hold on their computer systems.
Welcome back!';

'>>5958948
>Ask your AI about the situation aboard the cruiser. After all, she’s the one with a strangle-hold on their computer systems.';

'>>5958948
>>Ask your AI about the situation aboard the cruiser. After all, she’s the one with a strangle-hold on their computer systems.';

'>>5958948
>have your AI flush all into storage tanks Air and backup methane tanks into the void. Then turn all the heating elements off and all the lights and lock down the doors and bulkheads. If not already done isolate internal comms and make it so no one can talk to each other unless we say so. While we get our own marines and boarding elements ready we want the aliens cold, asphyxiating, and going insane and loosing hope.

>When boarding have our AI re heat and oxygenize only sections were moving into right before we enter to give the aliens as little time as possible to get ready. If possible do what we did to the Inni ships and de pressurize sections then violently re pressurize them to further take enemy’s off balance and skew the fight in our favor.';

'>>5958948
>Listen in on the marine briefing. How are they planning on taking the ship?
WB Thunderhead';

'>>5958948
>>Catch up on the commander's conversation. What are your fellow officers concerned about?
>Ask your AI about the situation aboard the cruiser. After all, she’s the one with a strangle-hold on their computer systems.

I want to hear what the other commanders are saying about this. And I also want to hear Diana's opinion on it.

Also good to see the thread Thunder. I've been excited the last two weeks for this thread :D

>>5958969
I like the thinking, but I think if we were to vent any spare oxygen, that would make it very hard to normalize the ship's atmosphere for when we want to board it ourselves. I also want to mention that we still have a want to take prisoners in the form of the Huragok and potentially the Lekgolo as well. Since they also seem to have an affinity for forerunner tech those worms. Venting the methane and cutting all comms sounds good though.';

'>>5958948
>Ask your AI about the situation aboard the cruiser. After all, she’s the one with a strangle-hold on their computer systems.
then
>Catch up on the commander's conversation. What are your fellow officers concerned about?';

'While you’d love to join the ongoing debates, you have to find out what you’re going to be dealing with aboard the ship first. As such, you turn your attention to the person -sorry, AI- that you have to thank for securing the cruiser in the first place. “Diana, what’s the situation like inside the cruiser?”

A second later, your AI’s avatar manifests in the holographic tank next to your command chair. The AI appeared in the visage of the goddess of the hunt, from whom she took her name. She turned to face you from inside the tank, before gesturing out of the bridge window, and towards the idle cruiser. “Right now, the situation is fairly stable. I have full control over the ship’s internal systems, but without a hard link I don’t think I’d be able to remote control the vessel. Regardless, all weapons are disabled, all torpedo tubes are empty, and the reactor is locked to a low power setting.”

“And the crew?” You ask, content that the situation with the ship’s electronics was stable.

“Over half of the crew was wiped out by the nitrogen dump, mostly consisting of drones, jackals, and elites that all weren’t wearing personal air systems. As such, much of the remaining crew is made up of grunts, though there are some other survivors of other races.” Diana replied, surprising you with just how effective the attack had been. You’d expected to take out the command staff for one thing. The split lips loved two things; leading and not wearing full-head helmets. So they’d be vulnerable to being poisoned, but for over half of the crew to be susceptible to that kind of attack surprised you.

You’re beaten to the next question by your XO, lieutenant commander Dyad, who’s still up after her rude awakening. “What do we know about the surviving crew?”

At this, Diana pulls up a holographic diagram of the ship, and highlights the areas of the ship where there are large concentrations of surviving crew. “Much like standard UNSC vessels, the crew is mostly unarmed, so they’re not as much of a threat. And with the vessel locked down and the internal comms out, each room is essentially isolated for now. I’m not an expert on covenant language or psychology, but I’d take it that the majority of the grunts aren’t taking it well at all.”

You raised an eyebrow at Diana’s avatar, and repeated the concerning end to her statement. “What do you mean by for now?”

>Cont';

'>>5959004

“There are some groups of concern that have been able to either arm themselves or find cutting tools. They represent less than five percent of the remaining crew, but they’re trying to cut or blast their way through the ship. I’ve already shared information on them with the marine officers, so that they can target and eliminate them first.” Diana explained, before highlighting a series of groups around the amidships area of the vessel. A few of them appear to be centered around the main hangars, but they're far enough away that you’re not sure if they were either moving out of the hangar, or if they were just in nearby areas.

>Ask about the groups of concern. How fast are they moving, and where are they going?
>Ask about the surviving crew, is there anything there that you should be worried about?
>Catch up on the commander's conversation. What are your fellow officers concerned about?
>Listen in on the marine briefing. How are they planning on taking the ship?
>Other (write in)';

'>>5959005
>Ask about the surviving crew, is there anything there that you should be worried about?';

'>>5958948

>Ask your AI about the situation aboard the cruiser. After all, she’s the one with a strangle-hold on their computer systems.

There’s lots that we can do here - can we lock the aliens inside various decks, and can we prevent internal comms? Can we shut down non-essential power? Can we fuck with their small arms and/or munition stores?

Glad to see this return!';

'>>5959005

>Ask about the groups of concern. How fast are they moving, and where are they going?

We can bring this intel to the commander’s chat once we have it';

'>>5959005
>Catch up on the commander's conversation. What are your fellow officers concerned about?';

'>>5959005
>Ask about the surviving crew, is there anything there that you should be worried about?
>Ask about the groups of concern. How fast are they moving, and where are they going?

The Lekgolo are probably the biggest worry in terms of combat. Otherwise, I would as well also focus on making the currently active unggoy being split up and disoriented. Maybe doing stuff like opening doors leading away from critical areas towards less critical ones?';

'>>5959005
>Ask about the surviving crew, is there anything there that you should be worried about?';

'>>5959005
>>Ask about the groups of concern. How fast are they moving, and where are they going?';

'>>5959005
>Ask about the groups of concern. How fast are they moving, and where are they going?

All it takes is one smart fuck getting access to something really explosive and there goes our prize.';

'>>5959005
>Catch up on the commander's conversation. What are your fellow officers concerned about?
I'm not worried about the groups of concern, we have full control, we just need to get the marines over ASAP. Talk to the commanders there's probably an issue with actually getting the ship out of here.';

'“What can you tell me about the surviving crew and the groups that you’re concerned about?”

“Right now, the surviving crew is mostly made up of grunts, a few hundred of them from what I can see. There’s also a handful of jackals, some elites, and a few aliens that I’ve not been able to identify. Either way, there’s three hundred and fifty seven personnel left aboard the ship." Diana began, returning back to the highlighted display of the ship, and picked out locations of the crew with highlighted dots. Most of them were clustered around what you could already identify as torpedo bays or plasma cannon batteries, but four large groups underneath the upper hull stood out, along with some around the hangars.

"Most of the unorganized groups are grunts that were either stuck at their stations, or inside special methane-rich habitation units. However, there are also some jackals, some elites, and a full compliment of Hunters still aboard. Though of the latter, only a couple are mobile." Diana continued, now breaking down the groups into color-codes for the different species. And sure enough, the four clusters on the upper hull were entirely filled with grunts. You had to assume that those were the methane-rich areas, both from how there weren’t any obvious weapons systems nearby, and how those areas had exploded when the second cruiser was ravaged by missile fire. At the time you’d assumed that it was just because of ammo dumps in the area, but if that methane had been set off then it would have caused significant damage.


“Right now there are three types of groups that we need to worry about, which I’ve tagged as marines, armory staff, and engineering staff.” The AI continued as she picked out a series of locations across the cruiser with bright red dots. As she addressed each type of group, their respective dots would increase in brightness as the others winked out.

“The groups under the marine tag are the most dangerous units. I believe they were meant to take part in boarding operations, as all of them are equipped with personal air supplies and are the only units led by elites. As such, they represent the best equipped and organized force.” Diana briefed you on the most dangerous threat first, highlighting the individual groups of marines as she went. “Right now, there are eight groups of twenty. Half are guarding the hangars, one group of twenty per hangar. Two groups are roaming between the hangars, and appear to be serving as an active reserve. And the other two are making their way towards the armories.”

“Why the armories? Aren’t they already well armed?” You asked. You could probably guess as to why they were going there -more firepower is always good- but you wanted to know if Diana had a different idea in mind.

>Cont';

'>>5959170

“With conventional weapons, sure. But they’re not well stocked on breaching charges, as they’re having to blow through every door they reach. So they’re likely heading to the armories to get more explosives. Speaking of which, the armory staff represent the smaller group of concern. There’s around a dozen grunts per group, both of which have begun arming themselves and establishing defensive works. If the covenant marines reached them, they would likely form a useful auxiliary for them, but nothing more.” Diana replied, this time bringing up a camera feed from inside the armories, where the stout aliens were busy moving plasma turrets from shielded rooms, and setting them up behind portable barricades. Taking them would be difficult to say the least.

“And the final group?” You ask, shunting your tactical concerns to the back of your mind for now.

“The last group of concern are surviving members of the engineering staff. Much of the engineering aboard the ship appears to have been done by their drones, which died when we poisoned the air. But the surviving engineering staff have rallied and are the only group actively fighting my intrusion into the system. There are two groups, one of eleven personnel and one of seven. The larger group is staying put around the engine room, while the other is making its way towards the bridge.” Diana continued her explanation, her expression growing dark as she highlighted their positions. One group was indeed in the engine room, but the other was almost halfway to the bridge already.

“They’re hauling ass. I thought those doors were meant to be sealed?” You asked, once again hoping to prompt the AI into speaking her mind.

“I did.” Diana snapped back at you in an unusual display of emotion, before leveling her voice. “Both groups contain one alien that I haven’t been able to identify, which are causing significant issues in trying to contain the engineer groups. I don’t know what these things are, but every time they reach a locked door or system, they interface with the door and unlock them locally. They’re forcing me to overload the door electronics in order to slow them down, but they’re just fixing the damage and going through regardless.”

To illustrate her point, Diana pulled up a camera feed of one of the groups, showing a small gaggle of grunts milling around a corridor while a familiar, squid-like alien floated near a door. One group of tentacles held a wall panel, while the others poked and prodded at the circuits behind it. “Whatever these things are, they’re good.”

That floating alien… you’ve seen one of them before! From the jackal raider!

Diana turns her avatar back towards you, and simply raises an eyebrow at you. Shit, she must have picked up on how you recognized the floating aliens.';

'>>5959179

>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.
>Keep it quiet. While talking about these aliens could be useful, you’re not sure if ONI would want you talking about them.';

'>>5959179
>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.
though on personal coms to prevent anyone else on listening';

'>>5959179
>>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.

I think ONI would prefer getting their hands on more engis and deal with having to read more people in. These are commissioned officers, they know how to keep their mouth shut.';

'>>5959181
>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.
It's information that'll improve the situation and our chances of capturing the battlecruiser.';

'>>5959181

>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.

But obviously we swear her to secrecy';

'>>5959181
>>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.';

'>>5959181
>>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.';

'>>5959181
>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.';

'>>5959179
>Have Diana open the outer airlocks and progressively open them inwardly so that everyone gets depresurized and yeeted into space. That should vent the majority into space. Or at least hurt them pretty bad when they get sucked out into other hallways and bounced off walls.

>Deal with the engineers first they have the potential to take the ship back from us. And we need to get a hardline for Diana. Ask the other AI to help support her. Each ship has one.

>Call our wolf pack there's a total of ten of us in it. We need their reinforcements. If there's a Spartan regiment in the area ask for them too.

>Land some marines at the bridge. Use pelicans to shoot the enemy marines when we open the hangers.

>Land marines at the engines to make sure they don't slipspace out.

>Use our ships Point defense weapons too if we can to kill the people in the hangers.

>Tell Diana it's a high priority to capture those aliens. Yes we've seen them before.

Question qm can we pull the covenant ship in our slipspace wake or no?

Please support this anons.';

'>>5959181
>tell Diana

>vent the methane living areas to space and see if we can route explosive gas into the path of the marines heading towards the armory that way when they breach into the next compartment they blow themselves up.


>tell our marines to get ready and see if we can get our teams to breach in through external hatches or PD cannon turrets near the CIC to avoid any alive aliens and seize the bridge before they get control of it.

> brief everyone that those floating octopus are VIPs and to not be harmed. Capture is absolutely necessary.';

'>>5959181
>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret.

Write it down to her through the computer. And mention it is because of ONI secrecy.

Personally, i recommend the best way to do this is to insert through the gravity lift. It should be empty, and Diana should be able to open up access to the main access highways of the ship from it.

From there, the marines can run toward the group approaching the bridge and kill the grunts using Battle Rifles, going specifically for headshots. Minimizing the chance of killing the Huragok. A second group of marines can do the same in the engineering section. When both have been taken, all marines would surround the hangars. Any section they try to breach they instantly get shot to hell and back. If any group comes around a corner, they will instantly meet 10+ marines all opening up on them at the same time from along the corridor (to avoid grenades killing them all at the same time).

This is the safest and least damaging way to take the ship in my view. Because NO, we are not going to blow up the methane or cut our way through somewhere. We want this ship to be as intact as possible when we hand it over to ONI.';

'>>5959169
This we need to strike fast and hard.
Ask Diana to put a visible timer of how much time has passed from the cyber attack. Every second counts, even if we have many advantages and ultimately we are very likely to get the ship even with some of our dead marines. The hunters might be a problem then you notice they cant go everywhere and have to face the fact of an A.I. locking them in a room, for then be detonated by multiple grenades while being cooked alive by flamethrowers. No the true problem is not them, not even engineers. The real problem is the high officers access/control codes, which are either on their corpses, their equipment (on their corpses ?), their personal rooms or the bridge. Find those ASAP and tag where they are on the ship.

Our commanders discussion needs to be done fast, and we need to get marines on the inside. Next question is if we should send a ship back for get a fleet here from home. Just for speed up taking the cruiser home and grabbing some pieces of the destroyed cruiser. Because we can take the cruiser with 4 ships full of marines, they are enough for take this especially with 4 AIs. SPEAKING OF
We have 4 AIs, Diana might have trouble alone. But 4 AIs working together should balance things and Diana is already in. Connect the others.


>>5959181
>>Tell Diana what you know. Better to tell her now rather than keeping what you know a secret
Any info can be weaponized. The ONI can pass over this if they learn of this anyway,
because we just have give them an entire cruiser and anything inside it.
Is probably a good idea to write on computer. Lastly tell Diana to just download every digital data she has access too, triple check it for any viruses, and send it to the other three ships too. Lets get rolling and grab that shotgun and combat knife.';

'>>5959705
>triple check it for any viruses
Good call. There is the slim possibility of the Covenant corrupting a UNSC AI like in the case of the Apocalypso during Harmony where they managed to slip in a rudimentary intrusion AI into intercepted communications.';

'“What do we know about those methane-filled areas? Are they just habitation areas?” You asked, keeping the conversation going as you pulled your personal tablet out of your thigh pocket, and opened up a text-messaging channel with Dianna. She needed to be briefed on why the floating aliens were so important, but you wanted to keep it out of earshot of people who probably didn’t have the clearance to know. You quickly punch out a message to the AI. We’ve seen those floating aliens before. They’re not hostile. Very tech-focused. I saw one strip and rebuild a warthog down to its bolts in only a few minutes. ONI is really interested in taking them alive.

“The methane-filled areas are the main habitation zones for grunts. Rest, recreation, medical care. The air in these areas is methane rich, which I infer allows the occupants to move around without needing personal tanks.” Diana replied to your vocal conversation at the same time that she penned a response to your text message. Her AI programming proving very adept at maintaining two conversations at once. Understood, I assume that they’re priority items for capture?

“Any reason why we haven’t vented those zones?” You asked, continuing both conversations. Yes. Pass the news out to the other officers, but make it sound like it came from an ONI request or something.

“Generally speaking, people get concerned when AIs start venting starship sections on their own initiative. I have no idea why. But if you give the order, I can vent those areas immediately.” Diana replied with a coy smile. She knew damn well why people got worried when AI started messing with life support. Thankfully, her text-message conversation was far blunter and to the point. Understood. Message away.

“Do it. And try to lock down any tanks in that area too, I don’t want any of them to escape.” You ordered the AI, signing off her plan to condemn dozens of aliens to a fairly painful death. Oh well, it's their fault for joining up. You leave her to oversee the act as you ponder your next move.

>Join the commander's discussion. You’ve got a lot to talk about.
>Listen in on the marine briefing. How are they planning on taking the ship?
>Other (write in)';

'>>5959948
>Join the commander's discussion. You’ve got a lot to talk about.';

'>>5959948
>>Join the commander's discussion. You’ve got a lot to talk about.

To modify what I said earlier. The plan i proposed is also meant to be done as fast as possible until all vital sections of the ship have been taken and only the hangars are left. As they are likely to become a more prolonged back and forth. (I am mentioning this since if it becomes an option it might be an important distinction to have made.)';

'>>5959948
>Join the commander's discussion. You’ve got a lot to talk about.';

'>>5959948
>Join the commander's discussion. You’ve got a lot to talk about.';

'>>5959948
>Join the commander's discussion. You’ve got a lot to talk about.';

'>>5959948
>Listen in on the marine briefing. How are they planning on taking the ship?';

'With a bevy of information available to you, you decide to bring your findings to your fellow commanders. Technically speaking, you were supposed to be in a meeting with them right now. But you’d taken leave to get an update on the situation aboard the ship from Diana.

When you rejoin the inter-ship call, you find yourself arriving in the middle of another conversation. “-kilometer long vessel. How are we meant to operate the damn thing? We don’t exactly have the operator’s manual.”

“We could always send over a prize crew with an AI. Of course, it would have to be one of you three leading it, or one of your executive officers. I can’t join you for obvious reasons.” The commander of the Galaxy replied. You raised your eyebrow at their statement though. Why couldn’t they leave their ship? It wasn’t obvious to you.

Before you can ask the seemingly obvious question, commander Trafford brings attention to your arrival. “Welcome back commander Wells. I take it that everything is in order with your AI?”

“No, I just heard someone mention a prize crew and I came as fast as I could.” You replied with a coy smile, before getting down to business. “Diana reports that our connection to the enemy ship is stable, but as it’s a remote link she’s limited in what she can do. The ship is still locked down, and we’re venting areas with stationary members of crew on a one-by-one rate. But there are organized units that are slowly making their way through the ship, and still present an obstacle to our plans to take the ship.”

“I guess we can chalk that methane discharge up to you then.” Trafford nodded. Thankfully, his demeanor hadn’t reverted back to being the asshole of the week. It even appeared as if he was trusting your judgements. “Yes, she sent us all an update on those units. The marines are putting together a plan to take the ship as we speak.”

“Which means that it’s up to us to ensure that their efforts don’t go to waste, and to decide on what to do with the ship once they’re done.” Commander Buckwood of the Achilles stated, before returning to what you assumed they were talking about before you arrived. “Personally, I still think that the longer we stay waiting here, the greater the risk that another covenant force will drop on our heads. We should strip the hull of salvageable equipment and leave.”

>Cont';

'>>5960682

“This is the first time a Covenant ship has ever been captured by humanity! If we’re going to go through all the effort of seizing the ship, we should try to bring the entire ship back, intact.” The commander of the Galaxy replied, with a surprising amount of exasperation in their monotone voice. From the sounds of it,

“While I appreciate how significant of a find this is, I have to play devil’s advocate here. Salvage isn’t our job, our mission is to inflict as much damage on Covenant assets as possible.” Trafford pointed out, keeping his voice carefully neutral to avoid showing his position on the matter as he provided an alternative view on the situation. “In such a case, the cruiser could be very useful as a fire ship. Pack it full of nukes and explosives, set it to head to the nearest Covenant world or anchorage, and follow in its slipspace wake. With any luck, we’d arrive just after it goes off, and can clean up the mess”

>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”
>“No salvage is worth it if we can’t bring it home. We should strip what we can, and be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
>“The loss of one ship won’t delay the Covenant. But if we can use this to destroy an anchorage, we could buy time for entire worlds.”
>“Actually, I have a different perspective…” (write in)';

'>>5960686
>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”
The idea of using the BC as a fireship isn't a terrible one but the reasoning is flawed. The Covenant is a galaxy spanning hegemon. Losing a single anchorage is a miniscule setback. Reverse engineering the ship would provide tangible long term results.';

'>>5960686
>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”
This is a once in a war posibility.';

'>>5960686
>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”

"We simply cannot allow ourselves to give up the potential of having it be reverse-engineered. What we might find within it might already be invaluable, But the knowledge in that ship could potentially show us a weakness we didn't know as of yet. Imagine if we could make what happened today into a regular occurrence. Turn their own fleets against them!"';

'>>5960686
>>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”';

'>>5960686

>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”

We have to go for all the marbles here. We should prioritize establishing a hardline between Diana and the ship to begin vacuuming as much Covenant data as we can though, in case we need to bail early';

'>>5960686
>>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”
swarm this ship now';

'>>5960686
>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”';

'>>5960686
>>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”
If at all possible, focus on downloading data and grabbing books/scrolls/PDAs/whatever they read on; any that we can and the bigger the better. Big books/text files are likely to be either technical manuals (obviously useful) or religious texts (less useful but could help inform us on how they'll act or react)0.';

'>>5960686
>“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!”

The time to play it safe died with Harvest, Mankind is loosing the war. If we are to turn the tide, we have to take every gamble we can.';

'“What we could learn from this ship could change the course of the war. We can’t afford to let this opportunity go, no matter the risk!” You insist, letting a bit of heat into your voice towards the end to emphasize just how important the opportunity was.

“Even if a covenant fleet drops right on our heads?” Buckwood was the first to try and counter your argument, with a fairly pointless question of his own.

“Yes.” You don’t dignify his question with anything more than a one-word reply. Instead, you double down on your original point. “We simply cannot allow the opportunity to slip away. The possibility of reverse-engineering the technology onboard is already invaluable. But there may yet be more than that to find, other weaknesses that we didn't know of before. We already have the advantage in hacking and electronic warfare, pulling their computers and systems apart would give us an even bigger leg up. Imagine if we could make what happened today into a regular occurrence. We could kill an invasion fleet with a keystroke, maybe even turn their own ships against them!"

“I think you might be getting a bit over excited there commander. Even if we brought this ship back home, it would take years to produce results. Maybe even decades. Using the cruiser as a fire ship could give more noticeable results on a far smaller timescale.” Commander Trafford was next to try and argue against your position. His voice level as before. Still, you take his instruction to calm down to heart, and level off your own voice to match.

“The idea of using the cruiser as a fireship isn't a terrible one, but the reasoning is flawed. Losing a single anchorage, while disruptive in the short term, would be a miniscule setback for them. We all saw the forces they dedicated to simply sending a message at Arcadia. Reverse engineering the ship, on the other hand, would provide tangible long term results.” You countered, pointing out that Trafford’s idea -while on the whole not a bad one- simply didn’t have the punch behind it to cause a meaningful setback. If you could glass one of their homeworlds then your perspective might have changed. But as things stood, there was better mileage in recovering the ship.

>Cont';

'>>5960778

“Besides. Whoever would handle this big of a find wouldn’t just sit on the navigational data. You can bet that if there’s an anchorage in that ship’s nav base, FLEETCOM would scramble all available forces to hit it.” The commander of the galaxy backed you up, pointing out that you weren’t alone in this war. FLEETCOM was always looking for ways to hit back at the Covenant. Hell, its few offensive actions these days were either long range search-and-destroy missions -wolfpack patrols being one of them- and hitting any Covenant anchorage or supply lines they could find. And of the two, the latter was always the one that got the fleet into gear.

"The time to play it safe died with Harvest. I don't want to sound defeatist, but we're loosing this war. We need a break, and this is it." You end your argument, hammering home the simple fact that if nothing changed, then humanity would continue to loose.

“Fair enough. I take it that we’re all in agreement? Are there no objections to dragging the ship home?” Trafford asks, cutting the conversation short now that there was a clear momentum behind taking the ship home. And when nobody objects, he quickly moves on. “Very well. And from the sounds of it, the marines have sorted out their plan. I think it’s time we paid them a visit.”

Thankfully, the marines hadn’t been idle while you’d been talking with the rest of the commanders. And they had formulated not one, but two plans for how to take the ship. Given how

The first plan was a simple one. A massed, dropship-borne assault into a single hangar, with reinforcements pushing through the ship as they arrived. With a total of nine pelican dropships -the Iconoclast had traded hers out for a squadron of Nandao fighters- that would be enough to land a little over two platoons at a time. Given how dangerous the initial assault would be, your marines would be sent in first, with some wearing the up-armored hellbringer suits you’d managed to salvage from the innie Mako. The assault would be bloody, brutal, and you’d be countered at almost every turn. But once the first hangar was secure, you’d be able to move quickly, and take out the most dangerous survivors.

The other option was a lot less risky, by putting your troops further away from the enemy. With the combination of Diana’s control over the ship’s escape pod bays and the Longinus’ boarding-modified pelicans, you could reuse the Covenant’s favored tactic of coming in through the escape pod bays. It’d put you further out than the hanger, and it’d take three pelicans away from moving troops. But it gave you a far less risky way in, but you’d be further away from the groups you wanted to intercept.

>Take the hangar! It’ll be one hell of a fight, but if you can seize it, you’ll have this in the bag.
>Go though the escape bays! It’ll take longer, but you’ll preserve more of your men for the fight.
>Suggest something else (write in)';

'>>5960780
>Take the hangar! It’ll be one hell of a fight, but if you can seize it, you’ll have this in the bag.
Violence of action. The groups still alive, I'd wager, will do anything to stop us from capturing the ship. Eliminating them takes priority.';

'>>5960780
>Take the hangar! It’ll be one hell of a fight, but if you can seize it, you’ll have this in the bag.
>Suggest something else (Us joining the assault?)';

'>>5960780

>Take the hangar! It’ll be one hell of a fight, but if you can seize it, you’ll have this in the bag.

I hate to sacrifice our boys, but this what they’re here for, and time is not on side - we have to take the ship ASAP now that we’re committed';

'>>5960780
>Take the hangar! It’ll be one hell of a fight, but if you can seize it, you’ll have this in the bag.';

'>>5960780
>>Take the hangar! It’ll be one hell of a fight, but if you can seize it, you’ll have this in the bag.
I want those pelicans guns welcoming the covies. BRRT BRRRT a few times. Just for give enough time to rush in.
Goes without saying full auto here for our men, no reason for keeping ammo. The pelicans will bring more. The flamethrowers, rifles, shotguns and nades combo should utterly obliterate any energy shields and armors. Fire will cook them good.

And yeah, Wells is going in. We have pushed the idea so might has well. Armor up, grab knife, grenades, pistol and shotgun. Beyond all the marines, there is the ONI salvage team and frankly we could grab even some crew volunteers if needed (for holding areas). And connect all the other 3 AIs too inside. 4 of them should help more instead of only Diana, lets try and see if something can be done with the hangars. Or with the covenant troops/crew. Hacking their comms and tagging their positions would be good.

Anyone that dies here make it a goddamn hero.';

'>>5960780
>>Take the hangar! It’ll be one hell of a fight, but if you can seize it, you’ll have this in the bag.';

'It takes a minute or so to decide on the best course of action, but eventually the option to hit the hangar hard and fast wins out over the slow and safe approach. And that was simply down to the fact that it gave the best chance to eliminate the only group that appeared to have a plan. The other two main groups of survivors were either grunts with tech support, or grunts with defensible positions. Neither of which would be particularly difficult to deal with. The boarding teams on the other hand had a plan, one that needed to be stopped as soon as possible.

It’d be UNSC marines -with BDUs and bullets- against Covenant boarding units with the home-field advantage. All together, not a particularly good situation. But nobody had a spartan or some other wunderwaffen to carry the day. So this would have to be done the old fashioned way.

From there, the plan broke down fairly simply. The first wave would be a platoon-strength unit from the Longinus, half inserted directly into the hangar via pelican and half EVA’ing through the energy barrier and onto the lower level. They’d land first, and secure a beachhead for the next platoon in. Once a large enough force had been landed, platoons would be broken off to pursue the forces heading towards the armories. Following that, the force would hunt down enemy survivors, as directed by Diana. At some point, an AI would be brought aboard to take direct control of the vessel, but that would only be done once the situation was deemed stable by the troops on the ground.

With that sorted, there was only one thing left to decide. Commander Trafford is the one to bring it up. “All right. Now that leaves only one last decision to make. Who do we want to lead the operation?”

You’re about to speak up, when a familiar hand reaches out, and taps the mute button on your console. You follow the arm up, and find yourself face to face with your XO. Lieutenant commander Dyad simply looks you dead in the eye, and says one word. “Don’t.”

“I’m the one who pushed for this whole thing Dyad. It’s my duty-” You begin, only to be cut off.

“Leave it up to the marines, they know what they’re doing. Hell, if you’re worried that they’ll mess it up then I’ll do it. Just…” Dyad trails off, even as her cyclopian gaze bores into you. There’s more that she wants to say, probably about how this isn’t the same as the Arcadia operation. But you both know better than to bring up that can of worms. So instead, she goes for something else. “The marines are the ones who are trained for this, let’s stay out of their lane.”

>Lead the assault. You’re the one who pushed for this, it’s your responsibility.
>Order Dyad to lead. This needs to go right, and she’s the only person you trust to do it for you.
>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.';

'>>5960866
>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.
Gonna be real, we'll just be in the way. This is what the Marines are for and we have enough of them to actually get shit done without us underfoot. If stuff gets hairy then we can grab the ol' boomstick.';

'>>5960866
>>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.
I don't think we're actually trained for this. We have some experience, but it's not out THING, IIRC.';

'>>5960866
>Lead the assault. You’re the one who pushed for this, it’s your responsibility.';

'>>5960874
The fuck you mean "politics force our hand"??? Force our hand to lead the operation that we shouldn't really be leading because we have more qualified people to do it for us?';

'>>5960866
>>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.';

'>>5960866
>Order Dyad to lead. This needs to go right, and she’s the only person you trust to do it for you.

would have preferred this
>>5959506
but was late to the vote
either was we are taking the ship intact';

'>>5960876
anon I think he is referring to the times in previous threads when wells took part in ground combat with covenant force and did surprisingly well against them, and even beat an elite captain of a special forces unit in a one on one situation';

'>>5960897
should also add that the elite had the drop on wells with active camo in that situation';

'>>5960866

>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.

Surely we can work with Diana to lend our boys meaningful assistance even if we’re not down there shooting?';

'>>5960866
>>Lead the assault. You’re the one who pushed for this, it’s your responsibility.

>>5960897
I'm thinking in the first thread where in chargen we gave Wells experience in VBSS missions with the marines, giving him a bonus in boarding/marine actions.';

'>>5960866
>Lead the assault. You’re the one who pushed for this, it’s your responsibility.

>can we please use our point defense guns and pelicans to shred the hangers. If we can also depressurization of the hangers would be smart. Getting sucked out into space sucks. It'll at least break their formation. And I doubt our small point defense cannons will do much damage to the actual ship. But they will shred the enemy ground forces. It'll make our entry massively easier. We can easily use our ship to fire low powered coilguns into each hanger. Then It'll be a cake walk. Also we should have Diana live stream each enemy position so we can snipe them through the hanger doors. It would be very easy for an AI to do that.';

'>>5960866
>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.
No use giving up your field marshals baton for being a ground pounder. Only a dummy would think it makes sense for a naval commander to lose all perspective and go in.
Besides, from here we can guide the AI's action on the show to help our marines best.';

'>>5960866
>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.

Both of us have experienced enough glory at Arcadia for a long time. We don't need to suicidally charge every time we smell blood.';

'>>5960866
>>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.
Or is it ?
I think this vote might be more on shifting toward either more unorthodox/orthodox approach, instead that "if we can do it or not". Nobody really has ever board a covie cruiser. And Wells has done boardings before, so he could do it.
And personal reasons...';

'>>5960866

>Let the marines handle it. Dyad is right, the marines know what they’re doing.

Arcadia was a special case. These guys know their shit, let em do what they do best.';

'A part of you -a part that’s a lot bigger than you’re comfortable with- considers simply ignoring your XO, and volunteering to lead the operation. You’re no stranger to shipborne combat, hell that’s what you spent a significant part of your early career doing. And you’re no stranger to fighting the Covenant either, thanks to your exploits during the Arcadia mission. A bridge officer managing kills against Covenant elites isn’t an insignificant feat, even if it did cost you a few of your original organs.

Then again, there was one hell of a difference between VBSS missions to civilian freighters, and an armed boarding action against a Covenant warship with a prepared defense. And there was the simple fact that you’d been incredibly lucky on Arcadia, both in terms of how well you’d done under fire and how stupid the enemy had been. And you couldn’t guarantee either of those factors today.

Plus, that little fiasco had been a special case. And from the looks of it, Dyad wasn’t too keen on you repeating it today.

You sigh, and decide that today discretion is the better part of valor. Well, and not ticking off your XO. “All right. I’ll leave them to it.”

Dyad instantly relaxes, giving you a small smile as she takes her hand off the mute button. “Thanks boss. You had me worried for a few seconds there.”

“Looks like we’ll have to reschedule the sight-seeing tour then.” You joke, getting a small giggle out of the lieutenant commander and lightening the mood a little before unmuting the meeting.

“-ere anything that you’d like us to do to help you out?” Commander Trafford asks as you return. From the sounds of it, they’d decided on who was going to lead the operation without you.

“Yeah, if you could vent the hangar before we go in, that could help break the enemy’s defenses and soften them up.” One of the marines -identified as Lieutenant Norden- replied. Of course, a lieutenant leading a force this bit was a bit unexpected, so you had to assume that he had prior experience that made him more suitable for the job.

“We can do that, and we can give your boys intel updates on the location of enemy squads, and warn about imminent ambushes using the ship’s security camera network.” You reply, offering the best aid you could give them. Information.

“That’d be very useful, thank you.” The lieutenant thanks you, before addressing the rest of the meeting. “If that’s everything, then we’re ready to begin the operation right now.”

>Offer something else? (write in)
>Say nothing, let the operation begin.';

'>>5961513
>Say nothing, let the operation begin.
So we're gonna be on the prize crew, yeah?';

'>>5961513

>Say nothing, let the operation begin.

Let’s game out escape strategies with Diana if we’re unoccupied later';

'>>5961513
>Say nothing, let the operation begin.';

'>>5961513
>Use point defense weapons and/or low powered coil gun shots to clear out the hangers.';

'>>5961513
>Say nothing, let the operation begin.';

'>>5961513
>>Offer something else? (write in)
Maybe offer for Diana to mess with the lighting on the ship to help the marines. Turning lights on and off while marines switch to or from night vision at certain points to gain an advantage, or even like a strobe effect to disorientate.';

'>>5961674
Supporting this and >>5961726';

'>>5961726
>>5961674
I'll support this anon too. Good idea with the lights.
>>5961513
I think my id changed I'm the pd/coilguns';

'>>5961513
>Offer something else? (write in)
"Diana could see about trying to place digital tags on the covenant crew and troops equipment, we have access to their ship archives. If she can do it, we can stream it and have it seen on the helmets visors of the marines, don't expect great translations of their names a simplified version should do."

i was thinking if some flashbangs or smokes could be also throw in the hangar somehow. That could help, maybe with a modified dummy missile ?

>>5961674
>>5961726
support this two

>>5961518
We have no business to do there with this option taken, when we get back home with the cruiser in control we could take a walk in it. This is mission time.';

'>>5961891
>We have no business to do there with this option taken
Prize crew is established after the ship is taken in order to get it back home. The Marines are just there to kill the survivors.';

'Personally, I think it makes no sense that any given commander leaves their vessel to commandeer the battlecruiser. It leaves the given ship vulnerable to being disconnected from its commander. And it leaves too much possible animosity between the commanders from the prestige gain of the singular prize crew captain.

What I imagine will likely be the most rational option. Is that the ONI black box Xenotech specialists on our ship transfer over and commandeer the vessel. It would make much more sense to me that they would be the ones who would take over the operation as a third-party organization.';

'>>5961996
>ONI black box Xenotech specialists
The R&D guys who have no experience commanding naval vessels? Might as well leave it to the marines who'll already be aboard. Also, food for thought, I'm pretty sure the Galaxy CO is an AI.';

'>>5962002
And we have any more experience commanding a covenant ship than they have? It is basically all guesswork. At least the R&D guys might be able to read what they are interacting with. Besides, it will likely be an AI that will actually drive the ship. The R&D team would fill the role of the crew running checks on the ship while on the way back as they check for spying equipment and trackers.

Which reminds me. That team could be used to check the wreckage of the defeated ship while the Marines do their job. Since it will probably take the Marines some time, and we can't exactly do anything for them in the meantime other than Diana fucking with their systems in the way the other Anons mentioned during the currently ongoing vote. At least not anything the other ships can't also do.';

'Also forgot to add, actually interesting theory about Trafford being an AI. We'll have to watch out for more signs.';

'>>5962106
A covenant ship, no. But a ship, yes. It's better that they're on it than not but there's still going to have to be an officer aboard one way or another.

>>5962107
>Trafford being an AI
No, not Trafford. Commander Penman is the CO of the Galaxy.';

'>>5961996
We have a very capable XO dryad. We can also slave our ship to the other 4 AI. Like they did when we used their coil guns and streak missiles.

We want the reputation for the capture. So we can get a Spartan contingent and a larger vessel. Remember the fight for reach is coming. And we want to be in the biggest ship possible.

Also an executive officer has to bring the AI over. It should be us and our AI.';

'>>5962171
fair. My mistake for mistaking the two. And okay, there probably needs to be some form of naval command on the ship. I still wish to look over the defeated ship while the marines do their thing. If it isn't unrealistic.

>>5962173
I think slaving our ship to the 4 other AIs probably goes against several laws around AI usage in the UNSC. When we linked up the 4 ships, we didn't slave our ship to the leading ship. We let the ships calculate trajectories, evasive maneuvers and firing timers together.

I agree. We want the largest ship we can get, but I think getting Spartans might be very hard. We would probably only be able to get spartan 3's and not any 2's. And even then they likely wouldn't be ones with shields. While we might be useful, those are normally used for specialist missions with goals requiring them in mind. Also my biggest want in this excursion is to see if we can delay the attack on reach. Be it by recovering a Spy drone or some other means. Since our Family is on tribute.';

'>>5962203
Bro your reading comprehension is shit. Our XO would still be in charge of our ship. Without our ai on board. We'd need to let another ships AI slave our guns so we can work in tangent with the rest of the Wolfpack. You need to think more before you respond incorrectly multiple times.';

'>>5962230
Is the idea of "slaving a ship" not to let all control be let over to the given ship it is being slaved to? Sorry if I misunderstood. I was just working with the assumption that since we were the ones who chose when to fire and how to do so in our votes, that we didn't give all control over to the Wolfpack network. In effect, we still had independent choices over our actions during the combat.

If you meant it in that effect of the ships just working together and taking over Diana's role, then fair. Since I thought it would've meant Dryad wasn't in control anymore either. Then I have nothing wrong with doing it that way. it is just a bit of miscommunication if that's the case.';

'“As far as support goes, we can offer a few more things than just venting the hangar. And given the situation, I think they warrant at least being proposed.” You announce; deciding that if you’re gonna send the marines in, it’s gonna be with as many arrows in their quiver as you can possibly give them.

Thankfully, Lieutenant Norden is more than happy to hear your ideas. Even if he can only identify you by the vessel you command. “What are you thinking, Longinus?”

“We have access to the Covenant ship’s computers, and we can leverage that in a number of ways. Messing with lights, streaming the location of hostiles to the marines heads-up displays, that sort of stuff. And if none of that works, then we can put fire into the hangar with the ship’s close-in guns. A barrage of fifty-millimeter HE-frag rounds should kick the door in nicely for your boys.” You offer. The systems options were simply the best use of your existing backdoor into the ship’s computers, while the close-in gunfire gave more tangible results. Knowing where the enemy was and all was already incredibly useful. But knowing that he'd been ripped apart by preformed tungsten shrapnel was even better.

And as it turned out, the lieutenant seemed to agree. “We’ll take the signals help. Not sure how useful messing with the lights is gonna be, any boarding unit would probably have low-light optics of some sort to maintain combat effectiveness in powerless parts of a ship. But keeping a tab on where the squids are would be mighty useful, and we could always the extra fire support. Assuming that you can get the rounds in without rupturing a fuel line or something?”

“We can get it done, don’t worry.” You replied without a second thought. Your crew had gotten you this far, and you knew their skills. Assuming the data-link with the cruiser held, this would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

“Fair enough, we'll leave it to you then.” The lieutenant accepts, before turning his attention to the rest of the people in the call. “Anybody else want to add something?”

When nobody replies, the lieutenant quickly called the meeting o a head. The time for talk was past, and now it was time to put the operation into action. You waste no time in dishing out your orders. “Nav, move us into a broadside firing position against the indicated hangar and bring us to a dead stop. Weapons, once we’re in position, put a short burst of fire from our rampart guns into the hangar. Low velocity, set to detonate once they’re inside.”

>roll 1d100, best of 3';

'Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>5962325';

'Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5962325';

'Rolled 44 (1d100)

>>5962325
Please be good';

'>>5962331
>>5962334
>>5962344

Yikes';

'Rolled 71 (1d100)

>>5962325';

'>>5962325
QM we have any special abilities? I forget the totality of what we have. hopefully there's one that'll save us.';

'>>5962355
Doesn't matter much.
We have more marines to send and we could shoot again with coilguns. Realistically most of the covenant in the hangar will be dead with the coilguns or have no cover left to use. The DC is no doubt very low here the numbers of advantages we hold is big.

Its honestly an overkill lol, but thats what you get in war. It's more likely we can't recover anything from the hangar, and that its somewhat damaged.';

'Honestly, I just imagine that it isn't going to be bad for the Marines or us, as much as it is just going to be "Huh, that didn't really do anything" With most of them having gotten into cover upon seeing a human ship coming in broadside. 44 Is not a terrible number either after all.

Destroying the things in the hanger would be a 15 or 21. At least in my head.';

'>>5962664
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The hangar a bit broken and some dead marines is small things, i wouldn't mind a bit. There is tons of storage on this cruiser of materials, equipment and so on. Even if we lose all or most of our marines and volunteer crew for take the ship it would be still a great victory.

Like it was said in the previous thread, the real problem is not about taking the cruiser is bringing it home. Because taking it we have really a great chance for do so.';

'>>5962668
Fair enough lol. I was just mentioning since i feel many anons are easily drama queens or think the rolls automatically are then cursed when the number rolled isn't above a 70.';

'“Lieutenant, we’re in position and ready to fire on your call.” You radio to the marines as the Longinus slowly rolls into position alongside the cruiser. The old Able class destroyer was almost entirely eclipsed in scale and lethality by the covenant warship. And compared to the two warships, the force of pelican dropships waiting only a few kilometers away from the alien vessel looked like a handful of remoras waiting to latch onto a whale.

You don’t have to wait long for the order to come. “Understood Longinus, send it. My boys will go in as soon as you’re done.”

“Firing.” You announce, loud enough that Lieutenant Bergen on the weapons console can hear you. He gets the hint without needing to be prompt, and you watch as the ship’s belly guns erupt in fire.

The Longinus had a mixed defensive battery, larger M66 Sentry naval coilguns on the sides and upper face of the ship, and lighter quadruple M870 Rampart guns along the lower flanks. Of the two, the ramparts thunder into life, the sub-second burst putting hundreds of shells into the void. In the same instance the guns fire, the shield over the hangar flickers and dies as Diana cuts the power. The cloud of flash-frozen air explodes out of the hangar, and acts as a perfect medium in which to see the 50mm shells detonate, spraying shrapnel into the ship.

Unfortunately, at the velocity they’re going, all the shrapnel does is slam into the back wall. And given how it absorbs it, you quickly realize that the wall itself is armored. The rain of tungsten fragments shred the few crates and containers magnetically-locked to the floor, defeating what little cover it provides. But for hundreds of fighter-killing shells, all you manage is a single kill. A single grunt was sucked out of cover by the decompression, and shredded by shrapnel.

The corpse flies out of the hangar, and a few seconds later, a pair of pelicans fly in.

Almost instantly, the chin guns of both pelicans erupt into life. You’re not sure if the pelicans are shooting at targets identified by Diana, or if the pilots are just shooting against obvious cover. But a few seconds later, you see bolts of bright plasma slamming against the armored hulls of the dropships. Diana notices your concern, and pulls up a camera feed from inside the ship. The surviving covenant soldiers -a mix of grunts, jackals, and elites; all in environment suits- were busy firing against the invading dropships. And in the contest between 70mm AP rounds and Covenant armor, the armor simply fails.

By the time the shield over the hangar was raised back to full, the 20 Covenant defenders had been cut down to their last few members, who were busy rushing back out of the corridors leading out of the hangar. With the bay clear -for now- one of the pelicans lowers itself to the deck, and disgorges the first squad of marines.';

'>>5963227
>Check in on one of the covenant groups. How are they reacting to the attack? (Engineers, armories, boarding teams)
>Listen in on the marine’s comms. If anything it’ll give a bit more context to what they’re doing.
>Chat with someone (who?)
>Other (write in)';

'>>5963228
>>Check in on one of the covenant groups. How are they reacting to the attack? (Boarding teams)
The Elite EVA/Rangers are the post lethal concern present for the most part.';

'>>5963228
>Check in on one of the covenant groups. How are they reacting to the attack? (Any Elite's left)';

'>>5963228

>Check in on one of the covenant groups. How are they reacting to the attack? (Engineers, armories, boarding teams)

Of the three, engineers make me most nervous';

'>>5963228
>>Check in on one of the covenant groups. How are they reacting to the attack? (Engineers, armories, boarding teams)

Definitely the engineers that are the biggest possible problem. Marines need to intercept them as fast as possible.';

'>>5963228
>>Check in on one of the covenant groups. How are they reacting to the attack? (boarding teams)
first this then the other two. And since we are at it....

>Write in
"Diana i want three consoles in our bridge constantly displaying what the covenant main groups are doing. Dyad, i want three Ensigns assigned immediately to watch these consoles. Report any movement and whatever they do, i want digestible simplified updates coming to me personally. Once this is set, have a direct comms line with the marines to inform them properly. Speaking of, Diana check all immediate cameras to the hangar, no surprises for our men."';

'>>5963260
>support';

'>>5963260
>support.

If we can try to shoot a coil gun into any elite groups trying to converge on the hanger. Tell the marines so they don't run into our shots.
>>5963227';

'>>5963260

>Support

Agreed';

'>>5963260
Supporting';

'>>5963260
+1';

'"Diana I want three consoles in our bridge constantly displaying what the covenant main groups are doing. Dyad, I want three Ensigns assigned immediately to watch these consoles. Report any movement and whatever they do, I want digestible simplified updates coming to me personally. Once this is set, have a direct comms line with the marines to inform them properly. Speaking of, Diana check all immediate cameras to the hangar, no surprises for our men." You ordered, and in the time it took for the first pair of pelicans to finish offloading the first men, three of the bridge stations and the ensigns manning them had switched over to monitoring the main groups of enemy resistance. Ensign Honneker on the Aviation station monitored the armory staff. Ensign Shand on the systems console -used to monitoring multiple things at the same time- kept tabs on the individual covenant boarding teams. And finally, Ensign Hoyle on the engineering console monitored the stragglers from the engineering section.

“I’ve spotted three laser trip wires in the hangar, wired to plasma grenades or other explosives. I’ve already highlighted their locations on the marine’s HUDs, they’ll handle them

“Heads up.” Ensign Shand announced. Calling your attention to his screens, where a series of red dots on a 3D deckplan of the cruiser noted the location of the various covenant boarding teams. And almost all of them were moving. “Looks like the split-lips have figured out what’s going on. Most of them are forming up, while two squads are converging on the hangar. I’d recommend keeping the pelicans in to provide fire support, the marines are gonna be outnumbered.”

“Lieutenant, the covenant are reacting faster than expected. The first enemy reinforcements are inbound from…” You relayed back to the head of the marine force, pausing only to look over the ensign’s shoulder to read the locations of the closest covenant units from off his screen. “Middle hanger level, aft door. And another group from the upper level port-side door. Total of forty hostiles.”

The lieutenant doesn’t audibly respond, instead clicking his mic active twice in a non-verbal acceptance that he’d heard you. And for a second, you’re worried that he was simply ignoring you as one of the inbound covenant squads -inbound from the hangar on the opposite side of the ship- quickly crossed the distance between the two hangars. With the two squads of marines rushing to set up defensive positions elsewhere in the hangar, the covenant team quickly found their route unguarded and open.

>Cont';

'>>5964443

A few seconds later, you realize that the lieutenant had left that way open for a reason. With what seemed to be a clear shot to the hangar, the incoming squad rushed down the corridor, hurrying to attack the marines before they could get a foothold. They were almost to the hangar when one of the pelicans that had just finished unloading troops gunned it’s engines, rising to the upper level of the hangar. The gunship’s pilot wasted no time, unleashing the full fury of the ship’s nose-mounted chaingun down the corridor. Of the 20-strong squad, only a handful were close enough to alcoves or intersections to dive into for cover. The rest suffered the same fate as the ones who tried to hold the hangar, and they were cut to bloody ribbons.

The pelican kept firing down the corridor as the other gunship in the hangar lifted off, and quickly vacated the hangar. A few seconds later, another pair of gunships -one tucking itself neatly underneath the hovering bird- entered the hangar, and disgorged their squads as the troops already in the hangar engaged the second inbound squad, halting their advance by pouring literal fire down the corridor with flamethrowers. Courtesy of your marines in hellbringer armor.

“All right longinus, you’ve got a better tactical read than us. Think we should keep reinforcing the hangar, or should we go on the offensive?” Lieutenant Norden asked, and you quickly reviewed what data you had to work with.

From what you could see, the engineer and armory staff groups were still doing what they had been before. One group of engineers was by the hangar, another was making their way deeper into the ship, and the armory staff was continuing to set up fortifications around their armories.

But the Covenant boarding teams -down from around 160 personnel to around 120 or so- were doing something interesting. Of the large group, you had to break them down further into three sub-groups. The first one was the teams that were making their way towards the armories, and who’s only reaction to the obvious boarding had been to set up rearguard units while they continued their way deeper into the ship. The second group were the ones actively engaged with the marines around the hangar you’d secured, ranging from the survivors of the upper floor squad, and the pinned-down middle floor unit. But the larger third group, composed of the units that held the aft two hangars and the remaining reserve force, were mustering into a 60-strong unit. Though you had no idea what they were doing.

>Keep sending in reinforcements! 40 marines just aren't gonna cut it if that 60-strong unit comes knocking.
>Send a squad to do something. (intercept engineers, attack an armory, or something else?)';

'>>5964445
>Keep sending in reinforcements! 40 marines just aren't gonna cut it if that 60-strong unit comes knocking.
I'm worried about that engineer team getting to the reactor and blowing it. We should land more troops then split off half a platoon sized element to intercept them.';

'>>5964445
>Send a squad to interact with the engineers';

'>>5964445
>Keep sending in reinforcements! 40 marines just aren't gonna cut it if that 60-strong unit comes knocking.
>>Send a squad to do something. intercept engineers';

'>>5964445
>Use the cameras to punch a coil gun HE rounds into the armory/hallway in front of the armory. Have an AI calculate the strength the round needs to blow up in the armory and hallway. And hit the 60+ squad with a round of HE coil guns too.

>Have our hellbringer armor squad push to engineers near the hangers. Time to capture them.

>Keep shoving more marines into the ship.

Let's give them a birthday present';

'>>5964506
Supporting';

'>>5964445
>>Keep sending in reinforcements! 40 marines just aren't gonna cut it if that 60-strong unit comes knocking.
>>>Send a squad to do something. intercept engineers

Not keen on putting holes in our prize. Reinforce and send them out.';

'>>5964445
>Keep sending in reinforcements! 40 marines just aren't gonna cut it if that 60-strong unit comes knocking.

Yeeeah no. We are not going to send a coil gun round into the ship anywhere. It is way too valuable INTACT, and any damage done will rapidly degrade the value of it. I can support the idea of forming a small squad to push towards the engineers near the hangar. But not the coil gun round.';

'>>5964690
>>5964606
You guys must of both missed the fact that the coil gun rounds bounced off the inner hull bulwark... we won't do any damage to the ship... we don't need hangers or hallways or even the armory. The thousands of dead aliens will have weapons for us to loot and shield gauntlets. Smh. Also we're on a time crunch and just doing nothing will give the engineers going to the bridge more time to lock us out. We don't have endless time to waste. And if we can knock those 60 put instantly faster our marines can mop up the rest.';

'>>5964445

>Keep sending in reinforcements! 40 marines just aren't gonna cut it if that 60-strong unit comes knocking.

Establishing a foothold takes priority, I think.

Does Diana have access to internal security systems on the ship? Can she see what they’re doing?';

'>>5965002
Yes she does. We've gone over this like the last 6 posts.';

'>>5965084

I was really asking whether Diana knows what the big 60 alien group is up to or if she has any good guesses, sorry for being unclear anon.';

'>>5965114
They're setting up to counter attack our landing force... my dude.';

'>>5964897
You didn't use the coilgun in the hangar attack. You used the smaller point-defense guns. Basically, your small anti-fighter flak guns to soften up the hangars, rather than perforating it with what is essentially a mini-MAC battery. I apologize if I wasn't too clear on that point.

If you want to use the coilguns, then you can give it a shot. Just keep in mind that the only thing that can be guaranteed about it is that you'll certainly affect the resale value.';

'>>5965415
Oh nvm then. Nope I'm good. Please adjust my vote to just reinforcing. And the hellfire armor capturing the engineers near the hanger.';

'I want to make something clear though. If the engineering team we are trying to get have an engineer with them. NO FLAMETHROWERS. They are very flammable after all.

Also on a secondary note. I’ve been looking into possible upgrades for UNSC ships. So i Would be happy if we could get into a situation like we were in when our character talked about MAC designs with that one project leader. Since i have a few ideas in mind.';

'>HEY GUISE, LOOK AT MY NAME
>GUESS WHAT I'M DOING RIGHT NOW GUISE';

'>>5964445
>>Keep sending in reinforcements! 40 marines just aren't gonna cut it if that 60-strong unit comes knocking.
More men are needed. We need more men asap.
>Write-in
The priority should be to destroy all incoming enemy forces. Kill all of them then, we can move. We need some turrets, ammo and maybe set up a medical position in case of wounded marines.
Pelicans guns and flak guns can further help.';

'“I’d recommend keeping the reinforcements coming LT, preferably with some machine guns. It looks like the covenant are mustering their reserves for a counter-push.” You advised, looking over ensign Shand’s shoulder as he looked through the ship’s camera network at the covenant muster. From what you could see, the elites -a mix of blue armored personnel- were talking with each other, while the grunts and jackals inter-mingled. A quick check showed that they didn’t have any heavy weapons, which was a small blessing.

“Is there anything you can do on your end?” The lieutenant asked, probing to see if your control of the ship’s computer systems could help them.

“No, they blew through the doors in the area. We can’t shut them in, and venting a nearby hangar would affect your boys just as much as it’d affect them.” You replied, shaking your head as you went. Not that venting the atmosphere would do much, what with everyone wearing vacuum gear.

“The only thing I can recommend is…”

>write in';

'>>5966382
>write-in
Pre-emptive attack maybe? They're all waiting for their full force to arrive before they try and push our marines out. If we catch them flat footed it'll disrupt them long enough for more friendly forces to arrive and solidify our foothold. Doesn't even have to be a full scale push, just something hard enough to disrupt their muster.';

'>>5966397

Support, send in a skirmish force to basically distract and prevent a coordinated action on their part.

Then our lads can penetrate the ship with Diana's help and ambush them from behind while they're trading potshots with our decoy force.';

'>>5966382
>write in
Rigging booby traps into their likely routes of attack from hand grenades, breaching charges, etc. Could also try and rip out some wall panels and stack it against some covie bodies from the first wave to make a impromptu firing position that might soak a plasma shot or two.

Seeing as we're also in control of the computer systems, might be worth seeing if we can't do some fancy shit with the gravity. Even assuming we can't crank it up to 10G for a few seconds, being able to turn it off or reverse it right as they launch their attack would severely disorganize them.

Similarly, strobing the lights (human eyes have different visual ranges than theirs, can we blind them without blinding us?), projecting disorientating sounds through any intercom system, etc.';

'>>5966382
>have the boys go to a hanger that's not blown. Close the door behind them. Then vent them to space. Land the marines in the new hanger.
>get the engineers when your forces relocate.

Easy. No reason to sit where they know we are.';

'>>5966529
https://youtu.be/EHGBQINW0B0?si=nxSVwqeShOrX199f

Being in a suit doesn't help from rapid depressurization BTW. You still get yeeted out of the hallway. That's 7 rhinos of force throwing you out of the ship. Even if you have magnetic boots you'd still get your legs snapped.';

'>>5966536
If you wanted to be a Uber dick I'd increase the pressurization in the hallway first. Even more force. 2 atmospheres is 14 rhinos ect.';

'>>5966382
>Write in

Traps along the entrance points, We know they are coming for us.

Also start hitting another location via boarding?';

'>>5966397
>>5966447
>support';

'“If you can spare the manpower, you could send a delaying force to engage the Covenant before they finish their muster. Not to win a stand-up fight, just to disrupt them and buy some time for you to set up a proper defense, and to bring over a few more pelicans worth of men. Past that, setting up barricades and mines wouldn’t hurt.” You recommended, thinking back to your lessons on small-unit tactics from the academy. Something that you’d learned in order to qualify for your shipborne security posting. Plus a quick look over the listed inventory for the marines, which included a concerning number of anti-personnel mines.

Thankfully, your idea passed the Lieutenant’s tactical mind, as he quickly accepted the suggestion. “Sounds good. Which way do you think we should go?”

“Your call. Chances are the Covenant will send troops to pursue the delaying unit as they fall back. So you could try to exploit that and lead the Covenant into a prepared choke point. We have door control too, so your men could use that to quickly outflank the Covenant, and then lead any pursuing forces into adjacent corridors to be locked in.” You replied, bringing up one of your other major advantages. Control of the doors gave a lot of potential for messing with the Covenant, especially when combined with the mines at the marine’s disposal.

“Sounds like a plan, especially the call on the doors. Gimme a bit and we’ll have a unit out there ASAP.” The lieutenant replied, before getting to work mustering his men.

>roll 2d100, best of three (first roll is for how long the delaying force holds up the Covenant, second role is for how much damage they do)';

'Rolled 91, 71 = 162 (2d100)

>>5967526';

'Rolled 89, 53 = 142 (2d100)

>>5967526';

'Rolled 41, 86 = 127 (2d100)

>>5967526

I think it’s working boyos';

'>>5967526
91 on delay
86 on damage
Gotta love it';

'>>5967526
Fuck yeah bois. Trashed them.';

'Ay, thats the fuckin business. I hope those hinge heads like their grenades pre-cooked.

Also when this whole boarding thing is over, i want to have an Elite's skull. The commander's if possible, but a lesser would be fine as well. It would be cool as shit as a trophy to bring back and show 'lil bro.';

'>>5967526
excellent. Now to bring in more squads and heavy weapons, there is still many of their troops to kill. The flamethrowers, mines and machine guns proved lethal.

The lieutenant has still to face the covenant main marine force but this is very good progress, and we can call more reinforcements in case of losses or wounded. They can't instead and their morale is already shaken, our men morale is very high instead.
If we can manage to crush them, we can clear them up and send squads to deal with the other groups and to occupy/control other important locations (bridge, engines etc..). You know what if we started sending through the covenant cruiser a message for accepting their surrender ? Might work on some of them (drop down weapons, give info and allow to be captured for receive war prisoner rights).


>>5967895
i recon ONI might allow for one of their skulls to be taken, so i wouldn't mind. There is plenty of corpses around in the cruiser for scientists and other experts to work on. Its probably up to what the agent in charge of the ONI specialists/scientists/engineers squad thinks.';

'You have to give the lieutenant credit where it’s due. He knows his men well.

It only took a minute or two for an enlarged squad’s worth of marines to muster on the lower level of the hangar, quickly sorting themselves into a pair of five-man fireteams and a three-man machine gun section. You easily spotted a pair of your own marines in there, both wearing the hellbringer armor you’d liberated from the downed mako, and toting a pair of flamethrowers. Albeit with some hastily applied OD-green sprayed over the armor.

Once they were ready, Diana remotely opened a door near to the squad, and started to lead them through the bowels of the alien warship. The marines moved quickly, but cautiously, even though Diana’s route took them carefully around any pockets of surviving aliens that may have been in their way. The only slight hiccup they encountered was a bit of distrust at the system of gravity-lifts that the Covenant used in the place of elevators to get between floors. But after one brave marine stepped in, and wasn’t killed or maimed, the rest of the squad followed him up to the next level.

The diversion squad’s first kills were the Covenant squad that was still trying to break into the hangar. Many of them, mostly grunts and a few jackals, had already been killed by the marines defending the hangar. But the majority of the jackals and all of the elites survived, using their shields to provide that little bit more protection for when they lent out of cover to take pot-shots at the marines. But with their attention so heavily focused on the defenders, none of them really notice the sound of a door behind them chiming as it unlocked. And only a single grunt noticed the door open, and for a flamethrower to come poking out.

One long blast of fire later, and the entire Covenant squad was aflame. A few more seconds, and the grunt’s methane tanks started cooking off, turning half of the squad into flaming fragmentation grenades. And a few more seconds after that, there simply wasn’t a squad left.

The diversion team didn’t wait to watch the fireworks though. Instead, they raced off deeper into the ship while the defenders started clean up duties. And now, the diversion squad broke down further. The machine-gun section fell behind, and started setting up at a long corridor, intending to turn it into a kill box. One fire team broke off into the network of previously locked corridors and rooms, gunning down any Covenant crew they encountered. And the other team booked it towards the Covenant muster.

>cont';

'>>5969227

Speaking of the alien adversaries. The covenant counter-attack force was still in the middle of figuring out what they were going to do next. The elites were apparently all the same rank, and appeared to be arguing with each other, at least according to what could be picked up from the tone of their speech and what few parallels you could draw between human body language and theirs. The jackals were skiving off in their own groups, and the few grunts that hadn’t been assigned to picket duty were instead goofing off. Giving the first fire team ample time to rig up anti-personnel mines in the corridors just beyond where the pickets could see.

As such, when the Covenant finally stepped off, -with jackals in the front and back, grunts in the middle, and the elites mingling among them- nobody spotted the small disc-shaped devices until the formation was almost halfway past them. First blood went to the marines in a shower of grunt as the fragmentation mines went off almost instantly.

Over the course of the next nine minutes, the Covenant assault force was under near constant attack. When the aliens tried to advance too quickly, they’d run ankle-first into mines. When they went too slowly, a pair of marines would jump out of a door they’d passed and empty a magazine into them before running away. And throughout it all, Diana did her best impression of a poltergeist.

You have to hand it to the AI. For a cyber-warfare AI, she really messed with the Covenant. She played the sounds of marines running through the speakers in nearby corridors, to give the impression that the assault force was always being outflanked. She cycled the lights between off, on, and strobing. And she’d randomly set off the activation noise for the doors, causing the Covenant troops to jump and aim their guns at the offending entrance. Sometimes she’d even open said door, revealing either; nothing, a brace of anti-personnel mines, or a remote-firing light machine gun ready to dump a 50-round belt into whatever it was facing.

But no matter how slowly they went, the Covenant force pressed on. The jackals at the front and rear of the formation locked their shields together in a phalanx, providing a decent amount of protection against gunfire. But they were replaced as the lead units, as unlucky grunts were sent ahead to clear any mines in the way with their own bodies. And the grunts really had no choice but to obey, given how one of the stout aliens was simply shot when it tried to return to the formation before a length of corridor had been cleared.

>Cont';

'>>5969229

By the time the Covenant soldiers reached the hangar where the marines had made their foothold, they’d suffered significant casualties. Over half of the grunts were dead, a decent number of jackals were either gone or had worn out their energy gauntlets, and even an elite was dead. The force had been blunted for sure… but the diversion squad had suffered losses too. Two marines had been killed, another two were injured, and the machine gun team had lost their weapons.

But they'd done their job, and they’d bought time for another four pelicans to drop off more troops, and for the marines already in the hangar to set up defensive positions. The mariners had the numbers advantage now, and a variety of semi-prepared defenses. But as with everything, it would only be decided one way…

>roll 2d100, best of three. first role for defeating the attack, second for how well the defensive positions work';

'Rolled 48, 28 = 76 (2d100)

>>5969230
I cast gun';

'Rolled 89, 97 = 186 (2d100)

>>5969230

Let's dance.';

'>>5969230
>>5969243

Well. That worked out rather well.';

'Rolled 63, 86 = 149 (2d100)

>>5969230';

'>>5969243
Good ol bullet storm and catching frags.';

'>>5969243
Holy shit nigga this is gonna be a massacre.';

'>>5969243
This is bullying by now. And i'm all for it.';

'>>5969243

Well done anon';

'if we get the chance to name battle cruiser, we should call it the UNSC Eminent Domain';

'>>5970173
Nah, UNSC Sevastopol.';

'>>5969243
Victory is ours, but really is the only result possible in our current situation. Attacking the hangar where we hold even more advantages than the rest of the ship would result in that. Maybe we can manage to capture some of their wounded, would be a cherry on top of a cake.

The real prize is more time and less losses, even if marines are very expandable in this situation. More time for more teams to be left here and for us to push in.';

'>>5970186
why sevastopol?';

'>>5970227
I just think the name sounds cool lmao.';

'>>5970230
but eminent domain is thematic';

'I have also been thinking about the ship's name. Personally, I think if we are to name it, I want to do it in the most disrespectful way possible to the Covenant. By following their naming conventions and naming it
UNSC: Truth Laid Bare

Otherwise i like Eminent Domain better of the names mentioned.

>>5970192
also DON'T say victory is ours yet. That is inviting murphy's law into the story on a silver platter.';

'>>5970231
In what way';

'>>5970231
But it's not. Eminent Domain includes a compulsory purchase by the government. We're not compensating the Covenant for stealing their shit.
How about the UNSC Sequester? There's loads of historical incidents to take inspiration from too like Perry Hazard's capture of an entire British squadron during the war of 1812. I doubt we'll get to name it ourselves though.';

'>>5970246
Never thought I'd agree with a namefag.

I put my vote in for the "UNSC Hostile Takeover" if Truth Laid Bare doesn't win.';

'>>5970356
Changing my vote to this
Dunno how it slipped my mind but I just realized the battle cruiser was the covenant ship we just boarded';

'>>5970173

I mean, probably ONI is going to want to hack it up and do research, not let us take it back to the front lines…';

'>>5970356
this is also good';

'>>5970451
Stanforth might start getting ideas about Operation: Red Flag when he hears about it';

'While the Covenant assault force had been slogging it’s way towards the hangar, you’d routinely checked in on the Lieutenant’s progress as he prepared the hangar for a significant defensive action. And you had to admit, the marines certainly knew their stuff when it came to establishing a defensive position, even in what was unfamiliar and nominally hostile terrain. In under ten minutes, the lieutenant had devised a defensive network that could probably have held against a force three times the size of the incoming aliens.

The corridor into the hangar had been mined. That much was obvious. But while you saw almost a dozen devices lying in wait, all but three of them had been deactivated. It didn’t take a genius to see what the lieutenant’s game was. He planned to leave enough mines active for the Covenant to think that any they set off had been the full extent of the defenses, only to activate the remaining mines once they were through to cut off their escape.

But in order to fully sell the gambit, there had to be somewhere for the Covenant to take cover inside the hangar, and some bait to lure them in. The former had been handled by leaving much of the existing cover in place, and even adding to it by laying out a few more of those portable energy shields that the Covenant liked to use as mobile cover. Unsurprisingly, this cover had also been mined, creating a minefield that the Covenant would willingly walk into, and stand right on top of the explosives.

As for the bait, that was handled by a squad of marines on the central “island” in the middle of the hangar, where some portable barricades and supply crates had been flown in to really sell the “human command hub” look. Hell, they’d even laid out a few body bags and stuffed them enough to give the impression of a corpse being inside.

But these marines weren’t alone. In the time it’d taken the Covenant to arrive, the lieutenant had nearly doubled the number of troops aboard the ship. On the first floor, another squad of marines lay in wait behind cover on the opposite side of the hangar, ready to fire down the back wall and to prevent a Covenant assault on the exposed troops on the island. But the majority of the defenders were on the floor above. Three squads of marines, with machine guns, flame throwers, and rocket launchers all waited for the Covenant to enter the hangar. And when given the signal, they’d lay into the Covenant troops from above. Assuming that any survived the mines. And to really add to the fun, a Pelican in a gunship configuration hung in the void just outside of the hangar, ready to both provide fire support and reinforcements.

All in all, it was a very well laid out defense. And all that remained was for the Covenant to walk right into it.

>Cont';

'>>5970781

The attackers did see the corridor trap coming. The long, open, and seemingly undefended approach into the hangar just screamed “here be mines” and the encroaching assault force had been thoroughly introduced to the concept over the course of the last few minutes. But with no other options available, the elites in charge sent their most expendable troops ahead first, a group of grunts with more fear in their officers than any explosives they may run into. Sure enough, three of them were blown to ribbons one at a time by directional mines before one of them made it into the hangar, followed soon after by its surviving comrade, and the rest of the assault force.

The bait marines did their jobs very convincingly, as they wildly fired at the incoming attackers. They didn’t hit anything, but it helped convince the attackers to get behind the cover that had been so helpfully laid out for them. The grunts hid behind the heavy crates and cover, poking their plasma pistols and needlers out to blind-fire at the marines. The jackals worked smarter, taking up positions -between- the sections of cover and using their energy gauntlets to form a single continuous defensive line. And the elites mingling among them to lead the line.

It didn’t take long before the Covenant decided to move on from their static defenses, and a squad-size force led by two of the four remaining elites broke off to assault the marine bait squad. They made it to the base of the central “island,” where it met the back wall, before the other squad on the first level swung into action, and reaped a bloody toll in their initial flanking fire, before the survivors rushed to cover. Unfortunately, when given the choice between getting behind cover or charging, one of the elites leading the flanking attack chose the latter. The hulking alien brute relied on its energy shields to protect it from incoming fire as the alien cranked an arm back, and tossed a pair of plasma grenades at the prepared human defenses. The alien waited for the grenades to go off, before activating a small plasma blade in one of it’s gauntlets, and charging out of cover and onto the island.

It barely made it halfway to the grenade-shocked marines before a literal firing squad of their comrades from the floor above blasted away its shields with concentrated fire, and turned the body and armor beneath to swiss cheese.

>Cont';

'>>5970782

Before that elite’s body hit the floor, the lieutenant played his trap. In swift motion, the explosives embedded in the cover that the Covenant troops were using were set off. The combined effect of over a dozen AP mines going off pulped bodies, and threw bloody chunks everywhere. In the same instant, Diana switched off the power to the portable energy shields, collapsing them and leaving any survivors bereft of their cover as the marines on the floor above wasted no time in spraying fire into the cover below. In a matter of seconds, most of the Covenant force was either killed or both badly wounded and shellshocked.

Panic spread quickly as the survivors realized just how wrong things were going. Some hunkered down behind what cover they could find, others scrambled around in a blind panic. One even tried to surrender, only for a marine to shoot it dead. But most tired to run right back the way they came. The first one to enter the corridor -a jackal of some kind- was almost instantly obliterated by a mine as soon as it entered the door arch. But with a choice between certain death under the guns of the marines, or a probable death from a mine, a handful of survivors chose the latter. And to their credit, the nine remaining mines were set off by retreating enemies. The only one to get through being the last elite, which used a badly injured jackal and it’s shield gauntlet to protect against one of the mines, before using its own shield to catch the shrapnel from the last claymore mine. That elite, along with a handful of light footed jackals, just about managed to escape. But the majority of the nearly forty strong force had been completely wiped out in just a handful of seconds.

“Longinus, we’ve just beaten back the Covenant assault. Anything you’d want us to focus on next? Or do I have operational control?” Lieutenant Norton asked as his men got to work with the simple clean up operation. The marine squads came out of cover, and carefully advanced on the Covenant’s formerly occupied positions, and wasted no time double-tapping the corpses. It didn’t take too long, most of the corpses had been partially reduced to chunky salsa and giblets. Those few that were still alive were too wounded and too low-ranked to be worth saving, and were swiftly put down.

>Hunt down the survivors! You don’t want them linking up with another group and passing on intel.
>Hit another force! You've knocked out the boarding teams, not it's time for another one (Remaining Boarding Teams. Armory Staff. or Engineers)
>Secure the hangar! You need that place to be 100% secure before you can move on.
>Leave it up to the lieutenant! He’s got a good head on his shoulders, so you can leave the operation to him.
>Other (write in)';

'>>5970783
>>Hit another force! You've knocked out the boarding teams, not it's time for another one (Remaining Boarding Teams. Armory Staff. or Engineers)
Hit the engineer team heading for the bridge';

'>>5970783
>Other (write in)

>Get a small group of 15 marines with battle rifles and concussion grenades to follow the survivors. Hounding them and killing off the jackals until only the elite remains. If possible, have Diana ask for surrender for the elite once cornered. If he takes it, we nab him. If he doesn't, he gets turned into Swiss cheese.
>In the meantime, have a team of 30 marines begin making their way to the engineers approaching the bridge. These will have the guys with hell jumper armor at the front.
>The remaining marines will continue staying in the hangar and keep it secure while the last groups of marines come over to reinforce.';

'>>5970783
>Hit another force! You've knocked out the boarding teams, not it's time for another one
Engineers';

'>>5970821
>>5970783
>support
Good idea.';

'>>5970821

Supporting a combined approach, we need to resolve this hijacking quickly';

'>>5970783
I'll back this guy >>5970821';

'>>5970821
support

though include some shotguns in those 15 marines, in case the enemy get close.';

'>>5970821
>support';

'“Get a squad to hunt down the survivors. I’d recommend a mix of shotguns and battle rifles for anti-shield capabilities, plus flashbangs. Kill off the jackals and try to corner the elite so that Diana can try to force it to surrender. At the same time, get a couple of squads together to intercept the engineer unit. Preferably people you can trust to watch their fire.” You answered, laying out your best idea for what to do next. From what you could see on the cameras, the armory-bound boarding teams had both stopped, apparently having heard the distant explosions from the mines.

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around? The larger unit hunts down the survivors, while the smaller unit goes after the engineer unit? The survivors are dangerous while the engineer group is just a bunch of grunts and that floaty thing.” Norden replied as the marines in the hangar started their post-engagement routines. Marines started looting the Covenant corpses for salvageable weapons and equipment, while combat medics rushed around and tended to the wounded. The majority of which being people in the “bait” squad, which had taken a number of casualties thanks to being the only target for the majority of the engagement.

“That floaty thing is important enough for the ONI spooks I’ve got aboard to be breathing down my neck. So I’d rather stack the deck when it comes to getting our hands on it.” You lied. While part of you is sure that your ONI salvage team would be interested in the alien, you had more experience with them. And if you could get one off the ship, then it’d guarantee you a valuable reward even if everything else went tits-up. “Once the floating alien has been secured, I want a squad to escort it back to the hangar for extraction, while the rest of the unit pushes the engineering room and secures it.”

“And the guys hunting the survivors?” The LT asked next, moving on as Diana tracked the survivors of the hangar battle as they fled deeper into the ship. As you watched them, one of the jackals tripped over the corpse of a grunt that’d been killed by a mine, and was almost trampled by his comrades as they fled past him.

“They’ll have Diana’s support to help even the odds. But if you’d prefer to jump up to a squad and a half or two, then feel free.” You suggested, giving the LT the option to expand the unit if he wanted.

“Fair enough, but I’ll have the combat-capable members of the delaying squad tag along on the hunt. That should even out the odds a bit more.” Norden explained as the unit in question hobbled back into the hangar, carrying a couple of men on stretchers, and the weapons of the men who’d died. If the LT saw them arrive, he didn’t linger on them for very long. “ What about the hangar?”

>Cont';

'>>5971720

“Keep the hangar secure while we send over more marines. The last thing any of us want is one of the armory-bound Covenant boarding teams to come back and taking out our entry zone.” You replied, putting your attention back on the armory-bound units. Both had stopped, and from the looks of it they were preparing to send some people out, either as scouts or as message-runners. Either way, they weren't going anywhere for now.

“Fair enough. I’ll pass it on to the men.” The lieutenant confirmed, before clicking off the comms net. And within a few seconds, you saw the first of the men aboard the ship moving with renewed purpose.

>Roll 2d100, one for each unit.';

'Rolled 93, 31 = 124 (2d100)

>>5971723';

'Rolled 76, 31 = 107 (2d100)

>>5971723';

'Rolled 14, 19 = 33 (2d100)

>>5971723';

'Rolled 51, 7 = 58 (2d100)

>>5971723';

'Rolled 31, 81 = 112 (2d100)

>>5971723';

'Doesn’t look like good spread, unfortunately';

'This time, it took a couple of minutes before the marines were organized and ready to move out. Casualties in different units had to be cycled out, and units merged in order to fill out the ranks. And ammunition expended in the defense of the hangar had to be replaced with ones fresh from the next pelican. But eventually, the almost company-sized marine unit started to swing into action. And units

In retrospect, there were things you should have advised differently. But recommending that the Lieutenant send the better part of a platoon worth of marines to deal with what were effectively unarmed grunts will never not be something you regret. The force made its way up to the main corridor that the ambling group of engineers were moving along, and simply waited for them to open the door. The grunts had less than a second to be shocked at the marines waiting for them, before they were all executed by a carefully aimed barrage of full metal jacket ammunition.

The floating alien reacted with what you had to assume was shock of its own, or perhaps some sort of defensive reaction, all it offered was a shocked squawking noise as it tugged it’s spindly limbs in tight. Where it remained for all of about five seconds, before it noticed that a stray round had damaged the door controls on the opposite side of the corridor. If it noticed the jumpy marines suddenly raising their weapons at it, then it completely ignored them. Instead, it floated over the dead and dying corpses of its erstwhile comrades, and busied itself with repairing the damage.

Thankfully, by the time it was done with its repairs, the marines had gotten over their shock at an alien that wasn’t trying to kill them, and had prepared the lure. Otherwise known as smacking a data pad into the wall, waving it in front of the alien’s face, and then luring the alien back the way they came. And with your new capture on it’s way back to the hangar, the two other squads continued on their journey towards the engine room.

>cont';

'>>5973223

Unfortunately, the unit going after the survivors of the Covenant assault force had far less luck. Your idea of going after anti-shield weapons like shotguns and battle rifles, while good in theory, didn’t work out too well when the enemy were more than willing to trade ground for time or better defensive positions. When they did stay for a stand-up fight, they used their combined shields to have multiple shooters firing against the one or two marines that could peek a corner at a time. And when they had the liberty of time to aim, it wasn’t long before the squad started taking casualties.

But most of the time, the survivors chose to run. And the aliens made best use of their long digitigrade legs to sprint through the ship. They easily outpaced your marines and headed forwards, to rendezvous with one of the armory-bound teams.

Speaking of which, those two squads had apparently come to a decision on what to do next. One of the squads abandoned it’s mission, and linked up with the survivors of the assault to form an enlarged unit. This enlarged unit then started to make its way back towards the hangar, either to have another shot at an assault, or to try and pen in the marines, you weren’t sure which. Meanwhile, the other unit got back to work, and started picking up the pace in their quest to blow through whatever doors sat in their way.

Still, from the looks of things, your situation aboard the cruiser was looking fairly decent. You had over sixty men aboard. That broke down into 20 marines holding the hangar, another 20 heading to the engineering bay, the enlarged 15-man hunting squad ready to react to a developing situation, and a ten-man squad bringing back the first of the floating aliens.

Still, you had problems to deal with. The enlarged covenant squad posed a threat by the simple fact that you didn’t know what they were planning on doing. If you sent the hunting squad at them, there was a decent chance that you could nip whatever they were planning on doing in the budd right now. But at the same time, if you let them come and break themselves on the defenses around the hangar, that would free up the hunting squad to do something else. Like taking out the last armory-bound unit, or even assaulting an armory on their own.';

'>>5973225

>Intercept the enlarged covenant squad! You don’t know what they’re doing, and you don’t want to find out. (Roll 2d100, one for taking out the enlarged unit, and the other for the assault on the engine room)
>Assault one of the armories! Now’s a perfect opportunity to take one of them out. (roll 3d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, the second for assaulting an armory, and the last for the assault on the engine room)
>Attack the last boarding unit! (roll 3d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, the attacking the boarding unit, and the last for the assault on the engine room)
>Hold the hunting squad back! They’re more useful as a mobile reserve for now. (Roll 2d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, and the other for the assault on the engine room)
>Other (Write in)';

'Rolled 39, 58 = 97 (2d100)

>>5973227
>>Intercept the enlarged covenant squad! You don’t know what they’re doing, and you don’t want to find out. (Roll 2d100, one for taking out the enlarged unit, and the other for the assault on the engine room)';

'Rolled 29, 42 = 71 (2d100)

>>5973227

>Intercept the enlarged covenant squad! You don’t know what they’re doing, and you don’t want to find out. (Roll 2d100, one for taking out the enlarged unit, and the other for the assault on the engine room)

Seems like the situation is starting to go sideways here...';

'Rolled 30, 65, 64 = 159 (3d100)

>>5973227
>Assault one of the armories! Now’s a perfect opportunity to take one of them out. (roll 3d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, the second for assaulting an armory, and the last for the assault on the engine room)

New to this quest but familiar enough with Halo to be very concerned. The chance of remaining Covenant forces getting access to something like an anti-matter bomb and scuttling the cruiser terrifies me. They always try to blow up their own ships when boarded, and that's what I'd do too if I was a surviving split lip son of a bitch and couldn't get to the engines or bridge to trigger an overload of the pinch-fusion reactor. Find the biggest bomb I could and then be off on my own little great journey, taking the cruiser and as many blasphemous humans with me as possible.';

'Rolled 77, 13, 52 = 142 (3d100)

>>5973227
>>Assault one of the armories! Now’s a perfect opportunity to take one of them out. (roll 3d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, the second for assaulting an armory, and the last for the assault on the engine room)';

'Rolled 25, 97, 41 = 163 (3d100)

>>5973227
>Attack the last boarding unit! (roll 3d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, the attacking the boarding unit, and the last for the assault on the engine room)';

'Rolled 89, 65, 3 = 157 (3d100)

>>5973227
>Assault one of the armories! Now’s a perfect opportunity to take one of them out.
>>5973266
You make a good point. I figured they would have just gone for the reactor to blow it but an AM bomb works just as well.';

'Rolled 66, 21, 89 = 176 (3d100)

>>5973227
>Attack the squad heading to the Armory! Have one squad head to the Engine room to get control of it, have the hunting squad plus 10 of the 20 hanger garrison harass and bleed the enlarged Covi squad and take 8 of the 10 men escorting the captured alien to go slow down or kill the squad heading towards the armory.
>have the 2 men escorting the alien go far around the action and if need be escaping the vessel in an enemy escape pod if it looks like the hangers going to be over run.
>have a bridge crew terminal set up just to guide that 2 man team away from the enemies and to get that alien safely back to our ship ASAP even if it means having them take an alien escape pod to be picked up by a pelican.
>set up terminals for all other splinter groups as well to help them navigate and set up ambush points';

'>>5973227
>Intercept the enlarged covenant squad! You don’t know what they’re doing, and you don’t want to find out. (Roll 2d100, one for taking out the enlarged unit, and the other for the assault on the engine room)

The armories have been described has heavily fortified, leave them afterwards so we assault them in larger numbers.
We need to kill this and the last boarding squad instead. Prepare more mines for the hangar squad alongside further fortified killing fields and removing any cover that the enemy can use upon entering the hangar. Pelicans will keep coming in and out for deliver all the marines we have of our wolfpack, so it is likely the marines in our hangar will be quickly reinforced by new squads.';

'Rolled 18, 21, 17 = 56 (3d100)

>>5973227
>Attack the last boarding unit! (roll 3d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, the attacking the boarding unit, and the last for the assault on the engine room)

Shit, the Covvies do keep AM bombs on board. Yeah, we can't them in.

And don't vote for attacking AN armory, we want to stop the last boarding squad, they are the ones about to get through to their armory.';

'Rolled 13, 4 = 17 (2d100)

>>5973227
>>Intercept the enlarged covenant squad! You don’t know what they’re doing, and you don’t want to find out. (Roll 2d100, one for taking out the enlarged unit, and the other for the assault on the engine room)';

'>>5973281
>>5973273
>>5973266

The thing you are voting for is to attack another armory, not hit the squad about to breach into one.';

'>>5974071
It's attacking an armory AND defending against the team about to hit it. To birds with one stone.';

'>>5974079
This was my understanding as well. If that's incorrect then the focus should indeed be solely on team trying to hit the armory and I'd rather put support behind that.';

'>>5974079
>>5974092

That'd be hitting an armory and having the marines in the hangar get into defensive positions against the incoming enlarged squad. Once again, my apologies if I didn't describe it properly, I'm not good at juggling multiple small units.

If you want to hit the other covenant squad -the one that's trying to reach an armory- then that'd be this anon's option >>5973503 .';

'>>5974179
Thanks. Changing from >>5973266 to support >>5973503 in that case. Not quite sure how rolling is handled in this quest, but since it's still 3d100 I assume the rolls in >>5973266 can stand?

>>5973227
>Attack the last boarding unit! (roll 3d100, one for defending against whatever the enlarged squad is going to do, the attacking the boarding unit, and the last for the assault on the engine room)
Linking to the last story post to try to make it easier to tally up, I know it can be a pain with vote switching.';

'>>5974179
Do we have ODST on board our ship? I forget.
>Intercept the enlarged covenant squad! You don’t know what they’re doing, and you don’t want to find out. (Roll 2d100, one for taking out the enlarged unit, and the other for the assault on the engine room)

Leave the armory for mop up operation.';

'>>5974636
no, we have only marines and crew. Same for the rest of the wolfpack. ODST was a possible additional thing to grab but we picked other stuff, ODST will be likely an upgrade that we could always pickup in the future.

we have also an ONI team but they are specialists/experts like scientists, engineers and the like, that will deploy on their own for grab and gather covenant stuff. All that stuff will then at mission end be delivered to a ONI blacksite.
At the moment we are sending all the marines squads of the wolfpack inside the cruiser.';

'>>5974179
I think people conflated hitting an armory with hitting the armory the boarding unit is about to breach.';

'It took a few seconds to confirm that the marine lieutenant also knew what was going on. Apparently, he’d also set up a command post somewhere in the flotilla, and was receiving the same surveillance data that you were using. But as it turned out, both of you had a fairly similar idea on how to handle the developing situation.

You drew a lot of strength from the unit that was assaulting the engine room. The two remaining squads were halved, with one continuing with its mission and the other one being ordered back, along with all but two members of the squad that was escorting your alien “prisoner” to the hangar for extraction. Of the 18 men that you were recalling, ten would reinforce the hunting unit, while the other 8 would harass the enemy squad that was heading for the armory and try to delay them. Finally, the last two soldiers with the prisoner were ordered to head for the aft-port hangar bay, where they could be evacuated without risk of being caught up in a firefight.

Speaking of your foothold hangar, the Lieutenant had an interesting idea on how to deal with the inbound assault. Essentially, you’d use two squads in tandem to draw the enemy squad onto a knockout punch. At the time, you had your doubts, as holding a prepared defensive line would give a lot less of a chance that you marines would be killed or injured. But you trusted the LT’s idea, and found your faith in him rewarded.

The plan called for the hunting squad to push the covenant squad from behind, spurring them forward. Before long, the enemy unit ran into the main deception of the plan. A fake series of two or three man picket positions, staffed by one of the hangar garrison squads, was set up in front of the enemy squad. These ’pickets’ were only there to fire a few shots before falling back, giving the enemy the impression that their momentum was allowing them to over run the hangar’s defenses. And in turn, making them move faster, and be less cognizant of the fact that they were being drawn towards the corridor where one of their sister units had been wiped out by a pelican’s heavy nose gun.

Unfortunately, a few of the men in the ’picket’ positions were too slow, and caught a plasma bolt or a needle in the back before they could get around the next corner. But if anything, their sacrifice just emboldened the enemy squad, which charged ahead almost heedless of the danger. When the unit reached the final corridor, they almost completely ignored the obvious blood on the walls. And only a couple of them in the tail-end of the unit spotted the damage to the back-wall that could only have been caused by a vehicle-mounted cannon, and linked it to the sound of burning thrusters in the hangar.

>Cont';

'>>5974850

Those stragglers, around a third of the unit, managed to skid to a stop in time, before the butchery of almost half an hour ago unfolded again. A pelican in the hangar rose to the height of that level, and unloaded its cannon into the corridor, butchering the fools that had rushed ahead. And when the survivors of the unit turned back, they found themselves staring down the many barrels of the now-reinforced hunting squad, and their three hellbringers. While the energy shields of the surviving elite and jackals could certainly soak a few rounds, they couldn’t save them from such firepower. They were able to kill or injure a few more marines in a desperate counter-attack, but it wasn’t long before even the mighty elite was cut down.

Deeper in the ship, the marines assaulting the engine room were able to achieve similar success. Much of that was down to the simple fact that their enemy was a handful of scared and mostly unarmed grunts, but the marines didn’t treat them with any less respect. The squad entered the engine room with their weapons up, and shot everything on two legs that wasn’t them. They didn’t bother with wasting time by playing games with the enemy, and afforded them with the same deadly attention, regardless of if they were unarmed, or bearing one of the few plasma pistols in the room. Within a few minutes, they had the entire cavernous room secure, and the second floating alien practically drowned in a pile of intentionally broken equipment for it to fix while they escorted it back for evacuation.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news. The below-strength squad you’d sent to try and delay the armory-bound unit -now the last of the Covenant’s marine-equivalent force- ran into problems almost instantly. The enemy had used their new glut of explosives to copy the marine’s tactics, and had rigged up IEDs of their own to delay any assault that they might encounter. Each IED had to be carefully disarmed with Diana’s express help, and in the time it took to defuse one, the enemy could lay more. And the enemy were being smart, as they rigged up every door they passed, so that you couldn’t take an easy detour around the bulk of the mines.

And thanks to Diana’s impeccable understanding of their route, she was more than able to tell you just how much time. “Commander! The enemy squad has only three doors left to blow through before they reach the port-side armory. I calculate less than five minutes until they reach their objective.”

>Order the squad in! Damn the mines, you just need to distract the enemy for a little bit. Just long enough for your hellbringers to arrive. (Roll 1d100)
>Hold the squad back! Whatever the Covenant are planning to do, it’s gonna take time. You can use that to bring up more troops, and plan a proper assault.
>Other (write in)';

'Rolled 44 (1d100)

>>5974851
>Order the squad in! Damn the mines, you just need to distract the enemy for a little bit. Just long enough for your hellbringers to arrive.
Either they're after something major or just trying to equip themselves better. No good comes of waiting to find out which.';

'>>5974851
>>Other (write in)
>Have Diana change the air mixture in the armory to 100% oxygen at as high a pressure as she can manage. When they blow open the door it will probably fuck up whatever they're trying to do and might even kill them.';

'>>5974851
>>Hold the squad back! Whatever the Covenant are planning to do, it’s gonna take time. You can use that to bring up more troops, and plan a proper assault.';

'>>5974851
>Other (write in)
>Have Diana completely depressurize the second door section and begin rapidly increasing the air pressure in the section the covenant are in, the section behind the first door they are planing on blowing, and rapidly increase the oxygen levels and pressure behind the third door. When the covenant go to arm the first door, the slightly higher pressure will help send shrapnel back towards their lines further than they are expecting and bring the total hallway pressure higher for the second door. As they prep the second door, slightly open it and lock it part way open so there's a slight gap that sucks all nearby air and hopefully any units near it into the door gap, getting them stuck in the ∆P kill hole. If the door hydraulics have enough power, re-closing it could be used to heavily injure or even kill anyone trapped in it. It won't be as effective as if the air had the consistency of water, but it will be extremely unexpected and unwelcome.

If they escape the change in pressurization from door two, attempt to rapidly reduce the air pressure in the entire hallway again. When they blow the third door, the high oxygen levels will back-flood down the slightly depressurized hallway causing a large fireball if they don't take the time to let their path reach equilibrium.

The combination of these de/pressurizations should delay them for long enough to get dedicated teams to them before they reach the armory.';

'>>5974908
>>5974851
Based explosive depressurization anon.
>Support';

'>>5974851
>>5974908
Sounds like a solid plan';

'>>5974908
>>5974851
i support this idea sound fun';

'>>5974851
>>Other (write in)
>>Have Diana completely depressurize the second door section and begin rapidly increasing the air pressure in the section the covenant are in, the section behind the first door they are planing on blowing, and rapidly increase the oxygen levels and pressure behind the third door. When the covenant go to arm the first door, the slightly higher pressure will help send shrapnel back towards their lines further than they are expecting and bring the total hallway pressure higher for the second door. As they prep the second door, slightly open it and lock it part way open so there's a slight gap that sucks all nearby air and hopefully any units near it into the door gap, getting them stuck in the ∆P kill hole. If the door hydraulics have enough power, re-closing it could be used to heavily injure or even kill anyone trapped in it. It won't be as effective as if the air had the consistency of water, but it will be extremely unexpected and unwelcome.
>Order the squad in! Damn the mines, you just need to distract the enemy for a little bit. Just long enough for your hellbringers to arrive.

We've almost fucking got it. An entire Covenant Battlecruiser secured. This is how we begin to rewrite history.';

'>>5974908

Supporting this anon’s proposal, clever thinking here if Diana can pull it off in time';

'>>5974908
Supporting';

'Rolled 88 (1d100)

>>5974851
>Order the squad in! Damn the mines, you just need to distract the enemy for a little bit. Just long enough for your hellbringers to arrive. (Roll 1d100)

TIME TO GET TACTICAL MARINES.';

'>>5974908
>support';

'Diana, how many compartments are between the enemy team and the armory?” You asked, the ghost of an idea flashing through your mind as you raced to find a way to buy the marines just a big more time.

“Three corridor sections, including the lobby outside the armory.” Diana responded, bringing up a 3d projection of the path ahead of the Covenant team.

“Depressurize the middle section, and pump the air from that into the section in the covenant are about to breach into. And start pumping the armory lobby full of either oxygen or methane, whatever flammable gas you can.” You directed the AI. The plan wouldn't stop the enemy on its own, but with a bit of luck, itd slow them down

“What’s the plan?” Dyad asked as your AI got to work.

“We won't be able to get reinforcements up and past the mines before the covenant team manages to reach the armory. But if we can mess with the air pressure in those sections, it might hold them up enough for the marines to take them.” You gave your reasoning, before gesturing to each corridor section in turn. “If we jack up the air pressure in one, it should help turn the door into a shrapnel bomb when they try to blow it. We might be able to catch some poor bastard on the second door and get them with delta-P. And pumping the last section full of gas might turn it into a fuel air bomb as a last resort.”

>roll 2d100, best of three (one for how effectively the delaying tactic works. The other for how much damage it causes)';

'Rolled 69, 69 = 138 (2d100)

>>5976435';

'>>5976439
:^)';

'Rolled 95, 30 = 125 (2d100)

>>5976439
... Nice? Did we just turn their advance into a raunchy comedy?
>>5976435';

'>>5976439
sex time?';

'>>5976439

ayyyyyyyy';

'Rolled 61, 8 = 69 (2d100)

>>5976435';

'>>5976439
Fuckin chad roll. I don't even care about the others. Hinged jaws getting fjcked tonight';

'>>5976439
Lmao killl all aliens !!!';

'>>5976439
>The methane injected into the atmosphere is spiked with Ungoy aphrodisiacs';

'>>5976439

I guess Dyad finds whatever we did quite sexy.';

'>>5976447
wait a minute. i just realized, thats another one.
we've got 3 whole 69's. what are the fucking odds lol';

'>>5976439
>69+69

>>5976447
>total of 69

Slaanesh please go.';

'>>5976690
It's a sign';

'>>5976631
>When Wells cooks up another unorthodox plan on the go, and it results in a bombastic massacre against the Covenant';

'I think the Unggoy aphrodisiacs would likely be the most reasonable outcome as a gag. But there is another possibility. A cursed option for the unholy 3 69's.

...Finding a female elite among them.';

'>>5976950
The forbidden Sangussy.';

'>>5976690
>>5976950
Pls';

'>>5976950
I wouldn't object to this if we make it to the end of Halo 2.';

'>>5976952
Fuckin a. Jeeeezus. Horrified yet intrigued... for science?';

'>>5976952
I am torn on if i want this or not...';

'do not fuck the xenos';

'>>5977373
Nothing to be torn about man. Just don't go forgetting this is a blue board.';

'>>5977526
True. Also, that was one of the most safe for work images I could find with a feminine Sangheli not showing tits. So I am well aware lmao.';

'Honestly, taking a POW sound like a personal exploit if anything.';

'After giving it some thought, I don't think there's a way to manifest a funny result for a triple 69 result with the two suggestions so far. Adding aphrodisiacs to the methane in the 3rd compartment wouldn't do much, as any chemicals would be destroyed when the methane is ignited as an improvised fuel-air bomb. And for the female elite thing, she'd probably get killed by the marines.

I can't see a way to make this triple 69 role unique in a workable way. So unless someone has a suggestion, this roll will probably just come out to a normal but boring result.';

'>>5977909
Dyad finally decides the "no fraternizing" rule doesn't count if she can find a way around it.
Or maybe Diana decides she REALLY likes venting compartments (geddit because choking)?';

'>>5977909

You could always “bank” the weird trip69 stuff until after the combat is over? Maybe the enemy ship command was all helmetless and in the same room due to their …unorthodox proclivities?';

'>>5977909
Sangheili masturbatory aids in the armory. Turns out they were trying to destroy the Shipmaster's hidden collection and stash as part of his last rights. ONI will probably be interested if no one else.';

'>>5977909
A mildly interesting data-crystal containing Sangheili poetry is found on one of the mangled and burnt corpses after the fighting is done. No need for much detail, just a passing comment on it a few updates from now. Allude to some of the poems being incredibly lewd but useful for xenological research.

Otherwise just move on with things, funny sex numbers shouldn't warp the universe into summoning Sangussy directly from the Domain or transform shrapnel mangled grunts into humping machines.';

'>>5977909
As >>5977924 said. We could just have the result play out after combat if it Would be easier.
With the whole female Sangheli thing, for example, She could be trapped separate from any squad and after the ship is taken over we come across her stalking the halls toward the bridge.';

'>>5977909
Cortana discovers a Jackal-ran grey market / porn site hidden in the computer systems which apparently piggybacks off of constant IFF updates to transmit to other hidden programs on other Covenant ships to make a unofficial channel of communication and trade...or something, I don't know.';

'>>5978063
>Cortana
Diana? Cortana hasn't even been made yet.';

'>>5977909
I have one, Save it for later, when it is appropriate to run into a female.';

'>>5978066
...yes. I really need to proof-read my 4 AM posts more...';

'>>5977909
Thats completely fine Thunderhead, this is just a funny roll. Don't take it too seriously same for our requests lol, write what you are comfortable with.

Like a stupid joke from a marine if you want something simple. A a covenant corpse exploded in a funny way, and thats it. Humanity doesn't exactly have any sympathy for aliens at the moment so arousal is quite honestly unlikely, with everyone at least having someone they are related to or that they know having being slaughtered by the mad zealot aliens. The only thing most of them want is kill them.
"Let me send your journey up your ass !" *detonates covenant trooper body with shotgun at close range*';

'>>5977909
normal but boring is good';

'Diana wasted no time in putting your plan into action. The smart AI quickly sucking all the air out of the middle compartment, and re-routing it forwards to spike the air pressure in the compartment the covenant team was preparing to breach into. The enemy was moving quickly now, aware at the incoming marines. And in their rush to set the next breaching charge, nobody even bothered to check the pressure readout for the section they were about to enter. So when they blew the first door, bits of it flew right back at them.

With the corridor being straight and practically devoid of cover, there was nowhere for the covenant squad to hide, so they simply stood back. It was a sound strategy, especially when using shaped charges that would blow debris into the room they were about to enter. But with over three times the atmospheric pressure being released, that shrapnel was quickly picked up in the air, and thrown back the way it came. And with the squads jackals looking the other way, in anticipation of an assault by the marines, the squishy grunts that made up the majority of the unit had no cover aside from the bodies of their front rank. The shrapnel carved open pressure suits and the bodies beneath, leaving three dead and four injured.

The elites in command simply stepped over the dead and dying, and ordered the unit forward to the next door.

This time, they didn't have to wait very long for the next hazard to appear. The first grunt to approach the door couldn't have expected there to be a vacuum on the other side. Or for the door to open by just a few inches as the unfortunate alien tried to affix its demolition charge. And for a few seconds, you were treated to the sight of delta-P in action. AKA, and of the biggest reasons behind why people dropped out of fleet postings.

At least you could confirm that you weren't so jaided that you weren't disturbed by the sight of a living being getting reduced to screaming pulp as over an atmosphere of pressure in the rest of the compartment forced them through a gap only a few inches wide.

By the time the grunt had fully passed through to the other side, the rest of the unit had been shocked enough that they didn't even bother approaching the door to finish setting the next charge. Instead, one of the elites simply armed another device from a good few meters away, and simply tossed it at the door like a discus. That long-distance deployment didn't completely destroy the door, but it punched a big enough hole that air could flood into the second chamber. Which allowed them to safely set a third charge to blow their way through.

>Cont';

'>>5978717

But by simply waiting for the chamber to regain enough pressure to no longer pose a threat, the aliens had lost time, and the marines were nipping at their heels. Blind rifle fire, fired from around a corner back where the covenant squad had come from proved that your below-strength squad had made it past their mines. And while the jackals holding the rearguard were enough to deal with the occasional pot shots, both you and the covenant squad leader knew that more marines were already on the way. The last boarding team knew they were out of time, and they threw caution to the wind once more, running up and slapping the demolition charge against the second-to-last door before they reached their objective, the armory. With one click, they set off the explosive device.

And by extension, the hundreds of cubic feet worth of explosive methane that had been pumped into the compartment.

The now highly pressurised mix of methane and air was ignited almost instantly, creating a terrifying hybrid of a fuel-air bomb and a flame fougasse. The long tongue of fire lanced out of the hole in the door, filled the second compartment, and even reached a bit into the first compartment. In an instant, almost half of the remaining covenant biometric sigil winked out, as most of the grunts and even an elite were caught in the blast.

That blast was all the cue the marines needed to begin their attack. And with a defiant roar and a barrage of grenades, the final push began.

>Roll 1d100';

'Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5978720
Get some!';

'Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>5978720';

'Rolled 7 (1d100)

>>5978720
This one's for all the marbles.';

'Rolled 90 (1d100)

>>5978720';

'Dammit, guess the Covies die hard. But we should at least get them even if casualties are higher than we want';

'>>5978732
Bro should of just waited 15 minutes XD';

'Unfortunately, the shock and awe that the marines had been relying on was far less effective than expected on the elite Covenant boarding team. The jackals that covered the unit's rear simply ignored the blast behind them, and responded to the human assault with a barrage of plasma bolts and needle shards.

The first marines around the corner were caught completely flat-footed, and went down almost instantly. Diana's connection to the marine battle net allowing you to see who was killed instantly, and who had merely been badly wounded. The marines behind them were far more cautious, and returned to carefully peeking around their corner and firing at the jackals from behind cover.

With their first attack rebuffed, the marines quickly scrambled to figure out an alternative plan. It didn't take them long to decide to try for a flanking attack, but moving the marines through the corridors took time that you simply didn't have.

As you watched, the surviving members of the Covenant squad rallied to the jackals' phalanx, under the command of the last elite in the squad. The remaining grunts covered the jackals as they slowly backed up towards the armory door. For a second, you hoped that the enemy was simply hoping to fight to the end with their backs against the wall. But unexpectedly, the door to the armory opened before them, and the unit rushed inside before it closed again, sealing your marines outside.

A few seconds later, the marine squad leader reported in. “HQ, this is charlie squad lead, we've secured the corridor. Some of the covies got into the armory, do we have anything that can get through that door?”

“Longinus, is there anything you can do on your end?” Lieutenant Norden bumped the question up the chain, straight to your ace in the hole, your AI and her direct connection to the Covenant ship's systems.

Unfortunately, this was one of the few times where that didn't apply, and Diana couldn't help you. “Negative. The doors into the armory are either on an isolated computer network, or they have a local manual override. Either way, I can't control them.”

“Understood. Charlie squad, post guards on the door and get the wounded back here for med-ecac. Also deactivate any remaining explosives, and start searching the bodies for useful weapons and gear.” The lieutenant quickly moved on. If he was unhappy with not being able to kill off the enemy squad, he didn't let it show. And he had his marines focus on securing whatever they could get their hands on.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for the marines to come up.with something, as a marine pulled something from the corpse of one of the dead elites. “Got something. Looks like a data unit of some kind.”

>Cont';

'“That it is. Please press the button on the top of the unit to activate it, and then the rune in the top right of the holographic display so that I can connect to it.” Diana ordered the marine. The man handled the device with the same suspicion you'd give a grenade, but he did as he was told, and soon after Diana was able to tell you what was on it. “It's a personal data unit. It contains a selection of personal correspondence between an elite, likely the one carrying the data unit, and a female of their species.”

“What makes you say that?” Dyad asked as she returned to the bridge. She must have caught your surprised look, as she simply shrugged and offered you a bottle of water. “Looked like you were having fun, I didn't want to disturb you.”

“The data unit contains a number of messages with repeating linguistic patterns. While my Covenant translation software package is limited, I believe that the messages are… erotic… in nature.” Your AI explained, pausing only to find the right word for her theory, and providing proof to back up her claim. “It would certainly coincide with some of the images attached to the messages.”

Still, your XO couldn't help but snort at the discovery. “One for the reference folder, or your private one?”

“If you'd like to compare our respective file collections, I'm sure that Commander Wells would be interested in the results.” Diana smoothly replied, earning a chuckle from the Lieutenant Commander.

Thankfully, Lieutenant Norden brought everyone back to the matter at hand. “So, it looks like we've got the Covenant contained aboard the ship. Do you think we should leave ‘em to stew while we bring over the prize crew, or should we finish the fight?”

>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.
>Leave 'em locked up and get the cruiser moving! You've spent way too long here, you need to get out of here as soon as possible.
>Other (Write in)';

'>>5980929

>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.

We gotta crack this nut now, letting the aliens plan in there is a bad plan';

'>>5980929
>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.
jej, good update.';

'>>5980929

>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.

Never give the enemy the initiative.';

'>>5980929
>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.';

'>>5980929
>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.';

'>>5980929
Is the armory fully air-gapped or do we still have control over life support within the armory? If it's just the door we don't have control over, we could drop the temperature within the room to rather uncomfortable levels before breaching.';

'>>5980929
>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.
>Send ourselves and the ONI task force over to start the hard link to Diana. We should be setting up while the marines finish them off. Then we can gap it.
Best to mop up the rest of them.';

'>>5980929
>>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.';

'>>5980929
Funny update
>Break open the armories and finish it! That vessel won't be safe for a prize crew as long as there are still armed soldiers aboard.
"We finish this fight. Until all the Covenants on board are all dead or captured, the cruiser shouldn't be consider secured for us to operate in."
"Now for our options, this enemy squad has no doubt already place it self well unless they are too occupied in caring for their wounds. We can expect them to be moving at least an heavy weapon for fire directly at the door once it opens. A grim situation. Still with Diana knowing the layout of the ship, we should know how this room is made and in which positions the aliens could be."
"Our current option is rushing in from the door, the use of too many explosive is something that we want to avoid. Instead we will open fire immediately inside with a machine gun, while all the flashbangs available to the squad are thrown both near and far has possible. Once all the flashbangs are thrown, shotguns will be used. They are the weapons more viable for such a small space and should prove deadly to any Covenant inside. Lieutenant Norden have the squad reinforced by at least 5 fresh marines from the hangar before starting the assault, and have 5 more marines on the way."
"Diana do you believe that is possible to create other openings for us to attack from ? Can we influence this room in other ways ? More subtle or simple ones. Perhaps a fake fire alarm, or a reactor meltdown. Or something else that distracts them and make them lose their temper and discipline, they are a religious empire after all. How well could you replicate an elite voice telling them to surrender ? Diana would it be possible for you to start sending a simple self repeating message for mock the great journey across the ship, in the Covenant own tongue ?"';

'"We need to finish the fight. Until all the Covenant personnel onboard are all dead or captured, the cruiser shouldn't be considered secured for us to operate in." You decided. Unfortunately, the simple fact of the matter was that you wouldn't be able to claim the ship while there was still a risk of someone blowing it up from within. No, you'd have to make damn sure the ship was clear. Starting with the armories.

Thankfully, Lieutenant Northern appeared to agree with you. As the junior officer swung into action. “We'll need to figure out our options then. Diana, Is the armory fully air-gapped or do we still have control over life support within the armory? If it's just the door we don't have control over, we could drop the temperature within the room to rather uncomfortable levels before breaching.”

“Both armories are entirely self-contained units. They have their own power supplies and a limited-duration life support system. Granted, it isn't enough for say… the grunts to get out of their suits, but it's enough to significantly draw out a siege.” The AI answered,confirming that you couldn't just turn the room into a freezer before the marines went in.

“Well it's a good thing that we're not gonna draw this out that long.” You replied as the idea died before its time. So instead, you broadened the scope of your ideas. “Is there anything we can do from the outside? Spook the guys inside with fake alarms, or something else that distracts them and could make them lose their temper and discipline. Like one of their officers telling them to surrender? Or something mocking that great journey that they keep going on about?"

That got Diana’s attention. Enough that the AI had to think for a few seconds before finally answering. “I can't access anything inside the armory, but if we blew open the door we could try and blast it from the speakers outside the room. But I can't guarantee that they'll take the bait. It might just provoke them into speeding up whatever plan they have.”

“So there's a good chance we'll need to breach in anyways.” You sighed, finally coming to terms with the fact that there wasn't an easy way out anymore. If you had to storm the armory, a lot of men would be killed. But you'd be damned if you pulled a ‘covie a couple just threw them against prepared defenses without at least trying to even the odds. “Any ideas LT?”

>Cont';

'>>5981885

“Well we know that the enemy is gonna be dug in pretty well. We can expect them to be moving at least one heavy weapon for fire directly at the door once it opens. Still with Diana knowing the layout of the ship, we should know how this room is made and in which positions the aliens could be in.” Norden answered, keeping his tone level and noncommittal. He could also see how much of a bloodbath this would shape up to be, and he appeared to hold his tongue for a few seconds, before finally sighing and accepting the plan. “I don’t see any other doors in, so our only option is rushing in from the door. Which will be made even more complicated by the fact that we'd probably want to avoid the use of explosives. I don't think setting off an ammo dump for a ship this big would be good for anyone aboard.”

“My thoughts exactly.” You agreed with the LT on the matter of explosives. “I think we could get some mileage out of a machine gun, and have it suppress the enemy while the marines toss flashbangs both near and as far as possible into the room. Once all the flashbangs are thrown, we have the marines push in, going hard and fast.”

“That's gonna be a bloodbath.” Dyad finally spoke up, with a sour tone in her voice that told you just how little she liked the plan.

“I don't think we can avoid that Dyad. I don't see another way in.” You pointed out with a dejected sigh. Assaults were always risky. Attacking a dug in foe was always dangerous. And fighting an enemy with their backs to the wall was always bloody. Add all three together and you were looking at something where the term ‘bloodbath’ could be considered an understatement.

“It's because you're not thinking creatively enough. Have a look at this.” Your XO replied, before pulling up a 3D projection of the room and the surrounding corridors. Dyad quickly pointed out one particular area to you and the LT. “The wall between this corridor and the armory is the same thickness as on the rest of the ship. If we wanted to take a risk, we could remove the wall paneling here, and try to blow a way in.”

“That's a risky play. We don't know where the explosives are stored in the room.” Lieutenant Norden carefully pointed out, and you suddenly realized that he didn't have any experience with your XO.

And unfortunately for both of you, Dyad had a point. “I don't believe that they'd store the explosives against such thin wall sections. But at the end of the day, it may just be our best alternative to throwing men against a well stocked machine gun nest.”

>Stick with the frontal assault! Its gonna be a bloody affair, but it gives you the most reliable option.
>Blow through the wall! It's a very risky idea, but it might give you the advantage needed to win the fight.
>Try and draw them out! Both of the other options have you on the attack, maybe flipping the script will work?
>Other / anything to add? (write in)';

'>>5981886
>Stick with the frontal assault! Its gonna be a bloody affair, but it gives you the most reliable option.';

'>>5981886
>Try and draw them out! Both of the other options have you on the attack, maybe flipping the script will work?
Why don't we cut through the wall instead of blowing through it?';

'>>5981886
>Stick with the frontal assault! Its gonna be a bloody affair, but it gives you the most reliable option.
Glory for the first man to die.';

'>>5981886
We have more than one team, so we could stick two teams or 2/3s of our teams on frontal assault duty, but set them up more for a pinning action than a pushing action and then a third on the side breach. Get them focused on holding the one angle and then flank them to catch them in a nasty crossfire shortly after the first teams engage.

Both sets of teams would have flashbangs and frags; wouldn't recommend bringing in HE or incendiaries - and that sadly includes the flamethrowers - unless we want to really risk a cook off. I'm not too worried about the frags because covenant armor and weapon pods are pretty much rated to withstand shrapnel whereas any unarmored or less armored flesh will get eviscerated. Additionally, we can have our hellbringer armor squad (minus the hellbringers) move up any undamaged stationary shield generators from the hanger to act as additional cover for the frontal teams.

For example in pic related - which is how I'm imagining the corridors and armory kinda generally look like - the frontal team splits in two and covers the door breach angle from two directions. This gives maximum initial sight lines and allows the assault team(s) to split covenant fire in two. If drop shields or other quickly deployable cover is/are available, it is placed both to provide immediate cover and preemptively to provide cover for moving up. Team blue flashbangs the breach as soon as the charge goes off, but do not immediately assault the armory. Instead, they pin down the defenders and get them focused on what's in front of them.

Team yellow, the flanking team, has their charge ready to go while blue team breaches. The wait for blue team to flash, and after the lower left half of blue finishes suppressing their sightlines, they tell that half of blue to stop firing as yellow blows their wall to prevent friendly fire. All of Frontal is notified that Flank is flashing the room, from their side, and right hand blue team maintains suppressive fire.

After the flashes go off, yellow pushes into armory and lower left Frontal moves to center to overwatch while the rightside team continues suppressing anything in their sightlines. Other than that, it's on the teams themselves to communicate, call out when and where they're fragging and mop up. Thoughts?';

'>>5981886
>Blow through the wall! It's a very risky idea, but it might give you the advantage needed to win the fight.

Lets change the rules.';

'>>5981886

>Blow through the wall! It's a very risky idea, but it might give you the advantage needed to win the fight.

This is a gamble, but a smart one.';

'>>5981886
>Blow through the wall! It's a very risky idea, but it might give you the advantage needed to win the fight.

>Blow the front door too. Hit them from two directions.';

'>>5981886
>Blow through the wall! It's a very risky idea, but it might give you the advantage needed to win the fight

Might want to still shoot and throw a few flashbangs from the front door. If nothing else for give them a false sense of security for a few seconds that we can exploit when we attack from the walls';

'>>5982060
Its okay but we don't know how big is the armory, this is a cruiser afterall. And its best to avoid using explosive weapons like grenades.
The problem with the front door is that is very likely they will have most guns firing on it. We can only do suppresive fire and throw grenades there, until the wall explodes and we can also go in from the door.';

'It took a bit of time and leasing with Diana to figure out the best course of action. But eventually; you, Dyad, and the Lieutenant came up with two distinct plans on how to deal with the armory.

The first plan was fairly simple. You'd use a machine gun team to feign an assault through the main door, and once the Covenant were reacting to that ‘attack’ a second team would breach into the room via one of the weaker walls. It'd be risky, as you had no idea what would be on the other side of the wall. But everyone knew that a full-frontal attack would be suicidal, and that a flanking attack gave you the best chance of catching the enemy off ballance while maintaining a viable reserve force.

Or would it? The more you looked at your available troops, including the reinforcements that were filtering in from the hangar, the more convinced you were that a two pronged assault could be viable. Even with modern advancements in IFF tag integration, a two pronged attack would be even riskier than a hell-for-leather flank attack. And it'd cost you your reserve force, which in turn would stop you from easily reacting to a counter attack. But if you sent the reserves in through the main door as soon as the flanking force came under fire, you could split the defenders attention and wipe them out that much easier.

>Stick to the flank attack alone! You need to keep your reserves intact. (Roll 1d100-10, best of three)
>Launch the two-pronged assault! You need every advantage you can get in this fight. (Roll 1d100-15, best of three)';

'Rolled 8 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>5984459
>Stick to the flank attack alone! You need to keep your reserves intact.';

'Rolled 40 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>5984459

Uh oh, was this a bad plan?';

'Rolled 15 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>5984459
>Stick to the flank attack alone! You need to keep your reserves intact. (Roll 1d100-10, best of three)';

'Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>5984459
>Launch the two-pronged assault! You need every advantage you can get in this fight. (Roll 1d100-15, best of three)';

'Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5984459
>>Launch the two-pronged assault! You need every advantage you can get in this fight. (Roll 1d100-15, best of three)';

'Rolled 75 (1d100)

>>5984459
>Stick to the flank attack alone! You need to keep your reserves intact. (Roll 1d100-10, best of three)';

'>>5984471
urghhhh the plan was fine we just rolled like shit of course in what is likely the last important part of this cruiser -_-
We are going to swarm it with all the marines nearby and send more marines afterwards if needed.
We need to take this stupid fucking place and kill all the aliens, that's the only thing that matters. We will not have one of the last squads of faggot covenant denying us this ship for the UNSC, we will send even the janitors in for chop the aliens heads and making dolls from their corpses. If even one of them remains alive we will put them through the worst interrogation possible.';

'Rolled 19 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>5984459
>>Launch the two-pronged assault! You need every advantage you can get in this fight. (Roll 1d100-15, best of three)';

'>>5984459
>Launch the two-pronged assault! You need every advantage you can get in this fight. (Roll 1d100-15, best of three)';

'>>5984739
-15 not +15';

'>Launch the two-pronged assault! You need every advantage you can get in this fight.';

'If only we'd gotten a bigger ship. Imagine if we'd have been able to capture a carrier. Or even an assault carrier like the Syfon...

After this we continue the original mission. wanna see if we could find anything else interesting while we are out here.';

'>>5986446
Anything bigger would have been impractical to capture with our miniscule Marine compliments.
>Syfon
Mass produced poorfag assault carriers. Gotta be a Karel or the black nosed Esgem from Reach/SotP';

'>>5986656
Well, the Syfon would be easier to find than the Kerel so I'm just tryin' to be more realistic about it. As you said yourself, we don't have the largest marine contingent as of right now.

The syfon just looks cool as well. I have a personal preference for the city-like surface on top of it.';

'>>5986446
We are a wolfpack we dont have a giant army with us to deploy. This cruiser is already a great opportunity and an incredible victory. The UNSC has no time for be picky, grabbing anything it can is for the best.

If we have the time for it.
This capture is outright above our original mission, and needs to be brought home. We will be also occupied looting the destroyed Covenant Cruiser and whats left in the fallen Mako. And we are in 4 ships. These operations will take at least some days to accomplish';

'>>5986446
>>5987078
We already have a pretty good haul. SoIdon't want to rock the metaphorical boat by saying we could fight an assault carrier and win.

As the anon above me said, we should think moresoabout what we have in front of us.

Also, based. Syfon's white is just better than Kerel's metallic color.';

'>>5987149
Why did it delete the spaces in pasting the text. fucking hell.';

'>>5987078
>so I'm just tryin' to be more realistic about it.
There's nothing realistic about capturing an Assault carrier of any sort. Even just this battlecruiser is pushing the envelope.
>>5987149
>Syfon's white is just better than Kerel's metallic color.
Counter point, the Esgem is purple and black.
>>5987114
We will be also occupied looting the destroyed Covenant Cruiser and whats left in the fallen Mako.
We already looted the Mako, that's how our Marines got hellbringer gear. And there's not much point looting the destroyed battlecruiser when we're on the verge of capturing a fully intact one. Loitering is a dumb idea and only put our current haul in massive jeopardy.';

'Sorry for the long delay between posts, I’ve had some technical issues.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“If we’re all good, then let’s get started. Lieutenant, this is your show now.” You stated as the final pieces of the plan fell into place. Four squads worth of marines had been assembled. One to hold the main entrance into the armory and to make the fake push look convincing, two to carry out the breach, and one

“Assault section, move up and set up a breaching charge.” Lieutenant Norden ordered, officially starting the assault operation. In the corridor adjacent to the armory, nearly twenty marines moved up with their weapons drawn and ready, two men from each squad moved up, and placed a series of bar-like explosives against the wall, bending the plastic explosives to match the contours of the wall before rigging remote detonators. Only a few scant inches away from the devices, the squads set up on either side of the future breach, and clicked their mics to signify that they were ready.

“All squads confirm ready. Squad one, start suppressing fire.” The lieutenant ordered, and a few seconds later the quiet within the alien ship was once again broken by the sound of automatic fire. You watched through the helmet cameras of the first squad’s machine gunner as he laid suppressing fire, and had to carefully reposition himself as the Covenant returned fire. A few seconds later, the first squad had caught enough of the enemy’s attention that the lieutenant ordered the next stage of the plan. “Two and three, go!”

“Breach! Breach! Br-” One of the squad leaders called, before their comms connection was cut off by a blast that was MUCH larger than anyone had expected. Almost instantly, six IFF tags winked out as the attached bio-monitors flatlined.

“Mass cas! Mass cas!” Someone called over the network, absently, you recognised the voice as your own. “We have a mass casualty event.”

“Reserve squad! Move up and start searching for survivors. Squad one keep up the pressure and hold those alien bastards in place!” Norden barked, a mix of anger and horror in his voice at how catastrophically wrong the mission had just gone.

Unfortunately, Diana was about to make it much worse. “Captain, I’m detecting multiple fires within the armory. I recommend venting the section in order to eliminate the fire before it spreads.”

“No! Not while my men are still there!” The marine officer barked at the AI, he knew instinctively that a blast that bad would have left people with major injuries. And most likely, the kind that left pressure suits holed and useless. If you vented the atmosphere, it would cause severe injuries on it’s own, and maybe kill people outright.

>Cont';

'>>5989710

“Lieutenant if there are further explosions-” Diana began, only to be cut off before she could vocalize just how bad any further explosions would be. Not that she needed to tell you, you’d been briefed on just how bad that could be on a starship. And while you certainly hoped that the armory wasn’t home to anything that could kill the ship, you weren’t happy with taking that risk.

“Just a minute or two. That’s all we need to get them into a sealed area. You can blow it after that.” Norden fired back, with quite a bit more heat in his voice than you were expecting. A heat that died the second he addressed you. “Commander, please. Just a bit of time.”

Note: roll 1d100 for any choice made

>Vent the area! Diana’s right, this is the only way to stop those fires from setting off something else.
>Let the marines evacuate their wounded! It’ll only take a minute to two, how much could the fire spread in that time?
>Push the armory! That blast would have messed the Covenant up just as badly as your men, and you NEED to kill them.
>Other (write in)';

'Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>5989711
>Push the armory! That blast would have messed the Covenant up just as badly as your men, and you NEED to kill them.
Sooner this is dealt with the sooner the Marines can be evacuated and the fires vented.';

'Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5989711

>Vent the area! Diana’s right, this is the only way to stop those fires from setting off something else.

Those boys will be honored back home';

'Rolled 84 (1d100)

>>5989711
>Vent the area! Diana’s right, this is the only way to stop those fires from setting off something else.

Air be gone';

'Rolled 88 (1d100)

>>5989711
>Can we just pump in tons of nitrogen or carbon dioxide into the area? If we get rid of the oxygen it'll stop burning.

>Do a partial vent. Drop it to half an atmosphere. Not a true vacuum. Then pump nitrogen or carbon dioxide into the area to bring it back up.';

'>>5989862
That's not a bad idea. Plus it wouldn't kill the downed marines with holed suits nearly as fast as vacuum would.';

'Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5989711
>>Push the armory! That blast would have messed the Covenant up just as badly as your men, and you NEED to kill them.';

'Rolled 59 (1d100)

>>5989711
>>5989862
I'll back that.';

'>>5989862

Support as well. It's gonna hurt, but it won't be as bad as sucking vac.';

'>>5989862
>>5989711
Support but slaughter the Covenant once this tactic is done. We must kill them all, this armory must be secured otherwise this wounded marines risk to die and the ship might be actually damaged.
No mercy, no respite. Kill all aliens push our marines to victory through hate.

Ah and send marines and medics here.
Any marines that dies gets some medals and full honors, any marines that partecipated should also get some medals. Same for our crews.';

'>>5989925
>>5990231
It needs a third roll, so if you're supporting it...';

'Thinking quickly, you once again made good use of your control over the ship’s life support system. Or rather, you ordered your AI to do it. “Diana, partially vent the area. Decompress the pressure to around half an atmosphere, then recompress with additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide. That should reduce the chances of severe decompression injuries.”

“Understood, executing.” Was all Diana said, before the pressure readings for the interconnected mess of corridors and rooms between the armory and the hangars dropped off a cliff as the AI activated the emergency decompression system for a fraction of a second. You couldn’t see directly inside the corridor -whatever had exploded had either blinded or disconnected the cameras in the local area.

“Squad four to command, we’re almost there!” A marine announced over the radio, before one of your bridge officers pulled up a feed from one of the fourth squad’s helmet cameras. Giving you your first look at just how bad the blast had been.

Compared to the original, moderately clean square entry hole, the new route into the armory had been turned into a gaping maw with its edges boiled smooth. The area around the hole, and the section of wall on the opposite side of the corridor, having been scorched black in the process. It didn’t take a genius to realize that it was because of a plasma blast of some kind. The breaching charge must have set off something in the armory, though figuring out what it was would probably be impossible. Bodies were strewn around the hole, burned to cinders by the roiling tide of plasma. Behind them were the wounded, radiating out from the breaching point in levels of severity. Not all of them were injured, and you watched through the marine’s helmet-cam as a man near the back of one of the squads ran up to the hole, and started spraying his rifle into the armory.

The men and women of the fourth squad didn’t waste any time, breaking down into two-man teams to aid the wounded and cover the breach. Thankfully, much of the wounded could still walk, even if they had to be led away thanks to being blinded by the flash of the blast. In the time it took them to grab the wounded and break contact, the first marine to the breach was killed by a needle round to the torso, adding one more body to the pile that marked your misinformed decision.

It was a grizzly sight, but if it was this bad on your side, how badly had the defenders been mauled?

>Cont';

'>>5990427

“Squad four, report. What’s the situation?” Norden asked as the survivors were carried away from the breach. The LT could probably have figured it out by himself through the various biometric readings that were being beamed back from each marine’s gear. But it was always best to get the perspective from the people on the ground.

“We’ve got ‘em boss, though they’re looking a lot toasiter than before. Three KIA, two in the blast, one from enemy fire. We have that again in severely injured, three more out of the fight from arm or leg injuries, all due to plasma burns. Looks like we have maybe half a squad left combat capable? Maybe an understrength one if the lightly wounded join the fight.”

Half a squad would have to do, if you wanted to press the attack. But that being said, could you really risk it?

>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)
>Fall back and regroup! You’ve lost the majority of your assault force, you need to reassess the situation to avoid losing the rest.
>Other (write in)';

'Rolled 25 (1d100)

>>5990432
>>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)';

'Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>5990432

>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)

Sadly I think we have to double-down here or risk losing control';

'Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5990432
>>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)';

'Rolled 11 (1d100)

>>5990432
>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)

Just don't die.';

'>>5990432
>>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)

One last push.';

'>>5990432
>>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)
kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them kill them';

'Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5990432
>Press the attack! You’ve come this far, you can’t let the sacrifices be for nothing. (roll 1d100)';

'“Lieutenant, if we’re gonna push in, there’s no time like the present.” You went out on a limb, and suggested the push. If the blast had cost you almost two squads of marines, while most of them were relatively sheltered from whatever had been set off by the breaching charge, then there was a very good chance that the Covenant had suffered just as badly, if not worse. And given how squad one was taking substantially less fire than before, you felt that there was at least some merit to that assumption.

Still, Lieutenant Norden wouldn’t have deserved his rank if he’d instantly agreed. It took a few more seconds of stark silence -at least on your end, you wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d spent it ranting and raving with his microphone off- he finally gave the order. “Squad one and squad four, prepare to push into the armory. Surviving members of squads two and three will stand by as a reserve force. Is that understood?”

“Sir, shouldn’t we wait for reinforcements?” One of the marine sergeants -the head of squad four, from his IFF tag- asked. And you felt the weight of your age at the sound of his voice. The grunt sounded younger than you, and you were only 31!

“Squid’s right. If we don’t push, they’ll rally or they’ll get desperate. We don’t want either. So get ready, we execute on my mark.” The lieutenant replied, passing over the marines' concern in a tone that was a bit too stiff. It didn’t take a genius to realize that he wasn’t too keen on pushing up so soon either, but he also recognised the opportunity, and didn’t want to let it slip away. Well, that or he was agreeing with you so that if it went wrong, he could just drop the blame in your lap to avoid anything more than a demotion.

That would be a bit cold. Respectable. But still cold.

Either way, it didn’t take very long for the fourth squad to finish pulling the injured marines back to a safe distance, before returning to the breach and stacking up against a nearby wall, the pointman with his rifle raised, and the man behind him already waiting with a flashbang. A quick check with squad one confirmed that they were also ready to attack, though they had two people waiting with flashbangs rather than just one. As soon as everyone was in place, the lieutenant ordered the attack. “Stand by to breach. Three. Two One. Breach!”

The first human devices into the room were the flashbang grenades. Nobody was really sure just how they affected the different Covenant races. But seeing how almost all of the aliens that made up the Covenant had eyes, they were all susceptible to being blinded. And it showed, as soon as the grenades went off, the remaining defenders responded with a hail of inaccurate fire. Maybe they were trying to make up for their casualties, maybe they were trying to make up for their inability to see by way of volume of fire.

Either way, it didn’t help them.

>Cont';

'>>5991105

The marines answered the enemy with their own guns, and made best use of their ability to aim to shoot enemies in their exposed arms. The tactic bought just enough time for the assault to begin in earnest, with the members of the first and fourth squads pushing up and into the room, weapons raised and ready.

Unsurprisingly, the blast that had mauled your force had done the same to the defenders, causing a decent chunk of casualties among the aliens. And thankfully, most of the killed or wounded had been jackals. With the battle moving into a more fluid state, victory would go to those with the best morale, and the faster reaction times. And here the marines had the distinct advantage. You still took casualties, as illustrated when the point man for the fourth squad had an arm blown off by a needler shard. But for every one man you suffered killed or wounded, they suffered two dead. And they were being gunned down quickly and efficiently as the marines raced each other for revenge.

The last enemy left in the room was an elite -an officer if you had to guess- who
Close enough to cut down a marine that moved just a bit too slow. But it didn't get anyone else before its shields collapsed, and the alien beneath was riddled with bullets. Its body had barely hit the ground by the time the news was reported in by the head of the first squad. “Central, this is four actual. Armory secure. I say again, armory secure.”

>Hit the other armory! Once it’s clear, you can finally get that damn cruiser moving. (roll 1d100)
>Investigate the area! Did the enemy even have a plan, or were they just falling back to an easy-to-defend location?
>Fall back to the hangar! The sooner you evac the wounded, the better.
>Other (write in)';

'>>5991107
>Investigate the area! Did the enemy even have a plan, or were they just falling back to an easy-to-defend location?';

'>>5991107
>Investigate the area! Did the enemy even have a plan, or were they just falling back to an easy-to-defend location?';

'>>5991107

>Investigate the area! Did the enemy even have a plan, or were they just falling back to an easy-to-defend location?

While the boys have a looksie, start calling up reserves for the second armory';

'>>5991107
>Investigate the area! Did the enemy even have a plan, or were they just falling back to an easy-to-defend location?

Have to be sure these little shits didn't set an antimatter bomb and stash it somewhere.';

'>>5991107
>>Investigate the area! Did the enemy even have a plan, or were they just falling back to an easy-to-defend location?';

'>>5991107
>>Investigate the area! Did the enemy even have a plan, or were they just falling back to an easy-to-defend location?

See if we can connect Diana to the armory now. Meanwhile have some marines prepare the wounded, and give them some care. Not sure we can just move most of them.';